Siblings
by leroy gibin
Summary: I hate plot summaries. They're either useless or reveal too much. Tag lines, too, they always sound stupid. But since I have to: A horrifying ordeal leads Dawn to search for her path, while Buffy and the slayers try to stave off another apocalypse.
1. Chapter 1: Frantic

**Author: **Leroy Gibin,

This work is based on characters owned by Mutant Enemy, Inc. They are used without authorization, but in good faith. All characters not created by Mutant Enemy belong to me. This work may be distributed freely as long as it is without charge, in its entirety and unaltered.

**Please read the following FAQ first**

**1) What is this?**  
This is a fan fiction novel based on characters and stories created by Mutant Enemy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer(BtVS) and Angel television series.

**2) What is it about?**  
The book is mainly about Buffy and Dawn, but most of BtVS characters are involved to a varying degree. It starts in January of 2004, approximately 8 months after the end of Season 7 of BtVS, and ends in the summer of that year. While it can be considered a "Season 8" based on the time frame it is a novel, a few tightly integrated storylines, not a dozen or so of somewhat interconnected episodes that ordinarily comprise a television series. This work is rated "R" for Violence, Adult Language, Adult Content, and Some Sexual Content.

******3) How does it relate to Season 8 Comics?**  
I started writing this book in part because plans for official sequels (Willow spinoff, Faith spinoff, Reaper spinoff) were cancelled. I didn't find out about the upcoming comics until I was a 3rd of the way through the book so I decided to simply publish what I had so far (Chapters 1-5) in January of 2007. I assumed after Season 8 comic came out no one would be interested, but I was wrong, and encouraged by positive feedback decided to work on finishing the novel. To make sure I'm not influenced by Whedon's almost certainly superior ideas I have yet to read the comic. It's up to you, the reader, to draw any favorable or unfavorable comparisons.

**4) How does it mesh with Season 5 of Angel?**  
Perfectly, I hope. This brings us to the important and complex question of canon. The short answer is that this novel follows BtVS and Angel canon 100%. If, while reading, you feel that this is not the case, feel free to start an email argument with me. Before you do that, however, please read the separate section at the bottom of my definition of "canon". This is a general discussion of what "canon" means on a television show with specific examples from Buffy, Angel, and others.

**5) How 'complete' is this 'completed' novel?**  
I have routinely posted 'cleaner' versions of previously published chapters and will continue to do so, although less frequently. The changes are mostly in grammar, sometimes in style. On rare occasions some scenes are changed/replaced, but this is done to better convey already existing plot lines and/or character development. In short, any change to an already posted version is for greater (hopefully) enjoyment of the work by new readers; none should necessitate a re-read.

**6) How do you want your feedback?**  
In large quantities :) Please send your comments, whether praise, or not, to my email address, I'll do my best to respond to all email; flames will be ignored.

**7) Anything else?**  
I apologies in advance for any spelling and grammatical errors you're likely to encounter. I'm continuously re-reading my work and posting 'cleaner' versions when necessary(see above). Also, if you know a fan fiction site, or a newsgroup where this work will be a good fit, let me know. Thank you very much for reading. At least this far :)

**Canon on a Television Series (feel free to skip this if not interested)**  
Once in a while a television series comes along that creates more than memorable characters and stories, but a new world, a new reality, so vivid and captivating that it is embraced by the fans with seriousness usually reserved for the reality around us. Star Trek is the most famous example. Buffyverse is another. In these cases continuity and compliance acquire a whole different level of importance. A given storyline cannot ignore or contradict earlier storylines. The definition of the word "canon" is "a set of laws". In case of a television series it is a set of facts about characters and events that are considered true and must be obeyed in future storylines. As the series continue, its canon expands. The question is then what facts fall under canon? The short answer is "everything that happens on the series is canon". The key word here is "happens". What does "happens" mean on a television series? We are all familiar with the concept of a plot twist. We watch an episode, or a series of episodes thinking that certain things are happening, but later a revelation is made and we realize that something completely different was happening. The revelation didn't change the earlier episode. It's still there, exactly as it was. What happened, happened. What changed was our perception of what has happened. The later episode didn't break the canon set earlier, it re-interpreted the events. Events are canon, but interpretation is not. How do we separate the two? I like to apply a "court witness" test. Those of us who have seen Law&Order or re-runs of Matlock (though they would never admit the latter even in aforementioned court) know that first hand accounts are admissible, but hearsay is not. What we see on screen is canon, but what we are told happened off screen is not. Let's say Spike comes over and tells Buffy he just ripped the head off some demon. He might be telling the truth. He might also be bragging. It could even be that it was some ass-faced demon and Spike ripped off a part different than what he was thinking, an honest mistake. The act of him saying the words would be canon, the act of him ripping off the head is not. Characters lie. Characters make mistakes. Even oracles and prophecies are not irrefutable as witnessed in the whole "father will kill the son" fiasco. Even supposedly established facts of the show can be flipped on their head with a reasonable explanation, as it was with the "arrival of Jasmine" expose by Skip. Interestingly, Angel writers seem much more open to drastic reinterpretations, while BtVS tends to be fairly straightforward. Of course, as with any tool, one must know the limits of good taste with reinterpretations. I'm pretty sure that on a dare I can create a construct where Buffy is an amnesiac alien from planet Zorg, Dawn is an agent of MiB assigned to watch her, and Anya is actually 7of9 sent back in time to protect the Earth from a new breed of Borg known as Bringers. Changing the inherent nature and motivation of the main cast is a big no. No declaring parts of the show "dream sequences" or "alternate realities", that's a cheap way out. Other than that, I see no taboos. I love logic games and a good reinterpretation thrills me. In fact, one of the motivators for writing my novel were all those glaring plot holes in Season 7. Their presence is understandable: the fate of the show was unclear, there were possibilities of spin-offs. As behind the scenes circumstances changed, new plot lines were created, old ones abandoned and season turned out to be pretty messy. Or so it would seem. What if that's not case? What if all those plot holes are not plot holes at all, but rather openings from which the storylines for future seasons/shows/tv-movies were to be weaved? Assuming that's the case I decided to give my best shot of figuring out what these might be. Here it is.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_When the Demiurge taught Man the art of magics It told Him that every spell has its price and  
magic can never change the balance of power. As we stand over our decimated world we bear  
witness to this ancient truth. The demonic scourge we sought to eradicate is almost gone, but  
so are our cities, our people, and our magics; the whole of humanity is left ravaged by the horror  
we have unleashed. We come here, to the vast grasslands and deserts of this continent to save  
what is left of mankind. Our struggle has left us weak and not long for this world, but we will  
not leave it unprotected. In every generation there shall be a Chosen One. She alone will stand  
against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer._

**Chapter 1: Frantic**

Cipriani was unusually empty even for this time of day, but Alberto Tartaglia preferred it this way. While he enjoyed the city life in general, he never liked the hassle and bustle in his immediate vicinity. He preferred to take his time to enjoy his food such as the wonderful scallops in front of him and to observe an occasional patron of the establishment, such as the pretty young blond apparently heading his way.

"Alberto Tartaglia?" asked the young woman with a distinct American accent.

"What can I do for such a beautiful senorita?" smiled Tartaglia. The answer came in the form of a knockout punch to the face of his bodyguard, Roberto. The unconscious man's body slumped under the table. If Tartaglia was planning on voicing any surprise or protest to this sudden attack he could only do so to the indifferent scallops on his plate where his face was being pressed into by this rather ill-mannered individual.

"My name is Buffy Summers." he heard the girl speak. "Your people took my sister. I want her back right now, or I will permanently merge your head with the tableware." The unintelligible noise from the plate prompted Buffy to lift Tartaglia's head a few inches off the plate. "You were saying?"

"There must be some mistake," the man blurted out trying to catch his breath. The sauce was running down his face and getting into his mouth and nostrils. "My people didn't kidnap anybody." Immediately his head was bashed into the plate again, this time with a much greater force.

"I know for a fact that the men that have taken her work for the Vizzini family. I know for a fact that you are their Captain here, in Rome, which means they work for you. And I know for a fact that if I change the angle of your head like this, I'll drive your nose cartilage straight into your brain on the next hit."

"Please, " Along with the sauce Tartaglia was now spitting out blood pouring into his mouth from the broken nose and a bitten tongue. "Please. Those were not my men".

"You did not just say that." Buffy's hand tightened the grip on her captive's hair and pulled back slightly as if preparing for a hit.

"No! Please!" cried the mobster. "I'll explain. The Don, he sent his own men here…for a special assignment. He didn't say what."

"Where are they?"

"I don't..." Tartaglia did not get to finish as Buffy threw him backwards into the wall. She threw over the table with her left hand and punched Roberto, who was starting to come to, in the head with the right. Stepping over his hulking mass, she lifted up Tartaglia by the throat until his feet were no longer touching the ground and slammed him against the wall.

"Whatever you're on," hissed Tartaglia, "I think we can make big money off of it."

"You think this is a joke?"

Tartaglia tried to smile, but the menacing intensity in the eyes of the Slayer sent shivers down his spine.

"No. I think you're a very determined young woman, but I don't know anything else." For a few moments Buffy stared at the man, trying to decide if he was telling the truth. Suddenly she let go. Tartaglia collapsed to the floor, coughing and wheezing. Buffy reached into his inner pocket and pulled out his cell phone. She then grabbed Tartaglia's head and stuffed the phone into his mouth.

"Make the calls and find out where they've taken my sister. I'll find you in a couple hours. Chao"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy's life in Rome didn't start out too badly. The plane landed slightly ahead of schedule. The apartment picked out by Giles was unexpectedly nice. As any other big city, Rome was rife with vampiric and demonic activity, but just as she expected, the newly activated slayers were more than eager to take over. Led by Stefka, one of the few Watcher educated Potentials that was not massacred by the First last year, they quickly covered both patrol and extermination duties. The only time Buffy needed to use her strength was to open olive jars for her sister. Dawn would pop them like peanuts in front of the TV and occasionally swear at the bumbling AC Roma players. The entire scene looked so out of place that it would invariably draw taunts from her elder sister, not unlike the one that began their conversation less than a month ago.

"I'm happy you're becoming more Italiany, Dawn. But did you have to turn into a guy?"

Dawn flashed a brief greeting smile and quickly tuned back to the game on the screen.

"You just don't get it, Buffy, _futbol_, by its very nature is a quintessential girl sport."

"In America, maybe."

"No, that's not what I mean," Dawn popped another two olives. "What's the first thing people notice about soccer?"

"Nobody ever scores?" Buffy put on her slippers and went into the kitchen.

"Precisely! Low scoring," Dawn continued a little louder. "Basketball, that's a guy's sport. It's expected that a basket will be made every thirty seconds or so, so all you get is a few high fives and move on. Soccer, on the other hand, is very unpredictable. You can go twenty, thirty, or even forty minutes before you achieve the big Gooooooal. But when you do, there's a really big celebration that lasts a minute or two. Of course, sometimes despite all the work being put in you get no Goooal at all, which while frustrating, is, unfortunately, a fact of life," Dawn turned to her sister who just exited the kitchen with two glasses of lemonade and a mildly horrified expression on her face, "What?"

"Nothing. These are exactly the kind of things I want coming out of my little sister's mouth. Why couldn't it have been a Catholic school? I had the brochures," Buffy handed one of the glasses to Dawn and sat on the couch beside her, "And why is there still soccer in the middle of winter?"

"It's middle of summer, actually. Roma's doing a bunch friendlies in Brazil and Argentina," said Dawn taking a sip from the glass. "How did your orientation at the university go?"

"Great," said Buffy pretending to watch the little striped figures moving chaotically on the screen. "There are a lot of interesting things to consider"

Dawn turned and stared intently at her sister who was still futilely pretending to watch TV.

"And what did the Chosen One choose?"

"I'm still weighing my options," Buffy replied in a slow, absent tone.

"Did you even go?" Dawn's voice started to hit the high notes it always did when she became angry or overly frustrated.

"Of course I went. See all that pretty glossy paper?" Buffy pointed to the stack on the coffee table.

"They have those at the door."

"I went"

"The full three hours?"

Buffy didn't respond.

"You promised me you'd go!" Dawn's frustration was really gushing now. Buffy put down her glass and got off the couch before facing her sister. Dawn has grown a full three inches taller than her, and while Buffy had no issues telling off an eight foot demon, the height advantage of her younger sibling made her uncomfortable.

"And I did. But in case you didn't notice, I already have a little job called the Chairman of the Slayers' Council."

"So you were at the clubhouse the rest of the day?"

"That's right. Taking care of official slayer business," Buffy watched as Dawn stood up as well, took another sip of her glass and with that all knowing look she has so often seen on their mother's face said,

"You do know that I'm going with Stefka to the movies tonight?"

"You have to stop that, Dawn. You don't get to tell me what to do."

"Then who? If not me, who? Mom's dead. Dad's in... in locations unknown, and Giles is in England. It's just us, Buffy, me and you. So it's up to me to take care of you."

"Take care of me? I'm your older sister, Dawn, and you're taking care of me?" Buffy pronounced dramatically with a badly faked Italian accent. Dawn grimaced as though her latest sip of lemonade has somehow become devoid of sugar.

"That is quite possibly the most horrible Godfather imitation I have ever heard. Please tell me you're not doing this in front of other people."

"No, just pets. Yesterday at the park I saw two dogs going at it and I told them that I hope their first child will be a masculine child," smiled Buffy, quite pleased that she was able to lighten the mood so successfully.

"You know, Buffy," Dawn grew serious again, "I just worry sometimes".

"Well, don't. So I didn't do much today, but my night is going to be pretty busy."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. And I'm going to start by getting a broom from the kitchen closet."

"You're going to clean? That's your big plan?"

"No, I'm going to use it to chase you away from the TV and into your room to study for that Trigonometry final."

"Sounds like fun."

"Loads of it. And I get to do it every night for the next five weeks."

"Actually, it's four"

"Then we better not waste anymore broom chasing time," said Buffy and pretend lunged at her sister.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They took her then. Coming out of the Mathematics building. They grabbed her and shoved her into a van. Her backpack tore, spilling its contents onto the side of the road. Samira tried to chase down the car, but all she could bring back to Buffy were pencils, two lined notebooks, and a copy of Trigonometria Avanzata. The ransom call came just an hour later. It would have been so much easier if they just asked for money. The leads were numerous, but the time was short. With less than two hours left in her six hour deadline Buffy headed from Cipriani to the clubhouse where under the pretentious name of International Women's Youth League the Slayer school conducted its training. Buffy found Dino Parreli in the study staring into space; opened books covered the desk in front of him. The elderly Watcher has joined the Rome office less than two months ago. Slaughtered along with their charges by the First's disciples, their headquarters in London blown to smithereens, the Watchers became a scarce commodity with less than a dozen active members around the globe. Giles has ran himself rugged trying to entice his ex-colleagues back from retirement and the private sector to help educate the hundreds of newly activated slayers. The seventy-eight year old Parreli was one of a few that agreed to give the organization a second spin. He was a right fit for Rome, where he could concentrate on teaching theory and leave the practical weapons training to Buffy.

"Well?" Buffy shouted impatiently from the doorway. Parreli slowly turned his head and stared at her for a moment, then took off the reading glasses and looked again at the Slayer who was now standing next to him.

"Anything?"

"I found no record of the Scythe being used in dark rituals. In fact, when Miss Rosenberg used it to turn all Potentials into slayers, it was the first recorded non-battle use of the weapon. However, it is one of the most powerful artifacts on record, so I am sure it has varied applications."

"If I knew what the Vizzinis want with the Scythe, then I could trade it for Dawn and get it back before they do whatever it is they want to do with it. I cannot just give them this kind of weapon and hope for the best!"

"I'm sorry I can't be of more assistance. If it helps, I am confident that Miss Rosenberg's spell is irreversible, even with the Scythe. The slayers she activated will have their powers for life," Parreli was speaking in a low, tired voice, trying in vain to maintain eye contact with Buffy who kept pacing around his desk. Suddenly she stopped.

"Good. Let me know if you find anything else," and she walked out the room. Parreli sighed and put the reading glasses back on. Europe's oldest and most prestigious occult organization is being run by a young American girl with no manners. Things have certainly changed.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The old man was not entirely correct. While Buffy was the official head of the Slayers' Council, the day-to-day operations were conducted by her ex-Watcher Rupert Giles from the reconstructed London office, and to a lesser extent, by Willow Rosenberg from Rio, and while the latter was also a young American girl, the red headed witch's manners were impeccable. At the moment this quality was coming under a ferocious assault as Buffy called her for the sixth time in the last hour and twenty seven minutes.

"I need good news, Will, and I need them now."

"Actually, I have managed a minor breakthrough."

"You don't sound too pleased"

"Well..," the witch's voice indeed sounded rather bleak with a sprinkle of fake cheerfulness put on for her friend's sake. "I've determined with certainty that Dawnie is alive and is somewhere in south-central Italy, so that's something."

"Yeah, that's just this side of nothing. Forget it, just get down here. We'll need you for the storm of Vizzini's compound."

"You think Dawn is there?"

"Maybe. It's not like you're giving me a better option."

"I'm really sorry, Buffy. Whoever put up these locator spell barriers really knew what they were doing. I'm sure I can break through with a little more time."

"You can continue working on it when you get here. How long will it take you?"

"I'll need half an hour or so to get the supplies together and I'll teleport right over."

"Half an hour then," said Buffy and hung up. For a moment she wondered at what point did Willow's teleportation ability began to be taken for granted. Then again if the witch managed to bring her back from the dead two years ago, what's so hard about moving people and objects on the mortal plane? It certainly helped them save a lot of money on air fare in the first few lean months, before Giles was able to reestablish some of the financing channels of the defunct Watchers' Council. After her spell transforming Potentials into slayers, Willow was widely regarded as the most powerful witch in this world which made their current predicament all the more alarming. Whoever has kidnapped Dawn wasn't trying to get the Scythe for its archaeological value, if they are able, at least temporarily, to match strength with Willow. With these thoughts running through her head Buffy took a left into the dorm corridor and opened the door to Stefka's room.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Discovered as a Potential Slayer at the tender age of eight, Stefka Bulanova spent almost ten years with the Watchers. Watcher educated Potentials were the first to fall under the knives of the First's Bringers. Suddenly the opportunity to prepare for their possible destiny as the Slayer no longer seemed as attractive as the relative safety in anonymity of being undiscovered. Most of those who managed to escape did so by fleeing to Buffy's protection in California. Stefka was one of only seven that survived without her. Her advanced knowledge of demonology and superb fighting skills have quickly propelled her to a top position in Rome. As weeks went by Buffy even let Stefka replace her as the slayers' regular fighting instructor. They sparred together a few times, with Stefka invariably throwing the fight in a way that would appear natural to the spectators.

"You don't think I can beat you on my own?" Buffy asked her after another one of their sessions.

"No," the lanky girl answered, wiping her face with a towel. "You're very strong, your reaction time is excellent, and you have a few nice original moves, but you severely lack formal training and your overall strategy is absolutely incoherent. At full strength I would defeat you on that mat every time."

"Oh, that's it!" Buffy was indignant. "Get your overeducated ass back in the training room and I'll teach you some manners that apparently your Watcher didn't cover!"

"You misunderstand me. The reason I win is because it is not a fair fight. You can't use your most powerfully weapon. "

"You think Mr. Pointy has magical powers?"

"I don't mean your stake. The reason you're the greatest Slayer who has ever lived is because God has given you strength beyond all who came before you or since. Strength which you are able to tap to defeat any enemy when it matters, no matter its strength or skill. The reason you don't win against me is because you know you don't have to. I don't stand a chance against you in a real fight. I understand that, and, in time everyone else will too. For now it is easier this way, and it's right. The outcome they see might be fake, but it is a higher truth. "

"So lying is good now, huh?" Buffy smiled tentatively, unsure as how she was supposed to react to this compliment. "I definitely have to check out your church."

Stefka smiled back and left the locker room without saying another word. Buffy wasn't sure if she might have offended her. She didn't have much experience interacting with devout religious people. Insane cult leaders, shamans, and warlocks, sure, but not the regular church going folk. Stefka was more than just church going. While she cut down on Jesus references as more slayers from the Middle East joined the school, her speeches, instructions, and examples were decidedly sermon-like, full of religious overtones. Her free time was also spent in a similar fashion. Aside from regular, twice-a-week, visits to the church, she prayed in her room daily for quite lengthy periods of time.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This day was no exception. As she expected Buffy found Stefka in her room, kneeling before the icon of St. Nicholas. This time there were two candles in front of it. When she heard Buffy enter, Stefka immediately jumped to her feet and turned to face her teacher. She was almost six inches taller than Buffy. Her long straw blond hair, tied into a single braid, went down her back to the point where the dark brown pants met the dark gray shirt.

"Anything new?" she asked, her large blue eyes transfixed upon the Slayer.

"I have confirmed that Dawn's abduction order came from the top, which makes it more likely we'll have to attack Vizzini's mansion in Modica. Andrew has just arrived there. He should start sending you reconnaissance photos at any moment."

"I'll restart the drills as soon as we have the layout of the compound. If you want to go over the final make up of the team.."

"It's alright," Buffy interrupted, "You spent more time training them than I have. I trust your judgment."

Stefka nodded politely.

"I should speak to them though, shouldn't I? They've been trained to handle demons with swords, not thugs with M-16s. I would go by myself, but there's just too many exits to cover.."

Stefka reached out and gave Buffy's hand a tender squeeze.

"It's Dawn," she said, "Everybody understands. They're all eager to help."

Had it come from any other person Buffy would not have believed it, but she knew Stefka would never lie to her. This strange devotion the girl had for her was as comforting right now as it was unnerving just a few weeks ago.

"It's weird", she complained once to Dawn over breakfast. "She makes me feel like I'm some sort of a supreme cult leader."

"Really? How strange. I mean, it's not like you have a bunch of young girls who left behind their families and possessions to live under you hospice in a heavily fortified compound chock full of various weaponry."

"Oh my god. You right, I'm David Koresh!"

"Nah " Dawn shook her head, pouring milk into her bowl. "You're not a true cult leader until you start having sex with you disciples. Kennedy could probably pull it off. What?" she inquired of the look across the table, "Don't tell me you haven't noticed"

"It's nothing," Buffy's unequivocal response was contrasted by the hesitating chopping of her pancakes, "So her eyes wondered a bit. She's just that kind of personality. Doesn't mean she's cheating on Willow"

"She is restless, and that kind of personality does not get her tongue pierced simply as a fashion statement if you know what I mean"

"No. Enlighten me. Please"

There was a long uncomfortable silence as Dawn kept her eyes fixed on her cereal trying to avoid the older sister's stern glare.

"Anyway, " she finally spoke, still not daring to lift her head. "I wouldn't worry too much about Stefka. At least not until she gets a St. Buffy icon to go with her St. Nicholas."

"And that's another thing, what is with her and that icon? What is she's praying for all the time, better Christmas presents? Suddenly, a letter to the North Pole is no longer good enough? Santa's pet!"

Dawn responded with undecipherable gurgling sounds as she was choking on her cereal.

"Aaah, " she finally sighed with relief and wiped little droplets of milk from under her nose. "That's funny. Actually I looked that up. For the Orthodox St. Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors and lost children. He has nothing to do with their Christmas."

"Good," said Buffy, still in the same mockingly stern voice, "Because my Secret Santa limit is thirty euros, regardless of who I end up with."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy left the school for the meet with plenty of time to spare. She gave the assembled strike team a quick look over, but left most of the speechifying to Stefka. The part about the enemy being out to get all of the slayers, while possibly true given their desire for the Scythe, would have seemed too self serving coming from her. Besides, Buffy wanted to run through the possible conversation with the kidnappers a few more times in her head. She was confident she could extend the deadline by a few hours. The designated phone booth was empty. Buffy made a few quick glances up and down the street and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, walked in. Small confined spaces have always made her uncomfortable, even before she had to claw out of her own coffin. At least this one was vertical. She checked for the dial tone, then for loose change. She spent the next few moments trying to read the French version of the calling instructions. She knew she was being watched and tried to appear as confident and as nonchalant as possible. Suddenly a knock came on the booth door. Buffy turned and saw a thirteen year old boy on a bicycle.

"It's busy. Go away!" she shouted through the door. The boy knocked again.

"There's no way you can be both blind and death," said Buffy opening the door. "Beat it before I beat you!"

"I was told to give this to you," the boy handed her a small wooden box.

"To me?" Buffy gave him a puzzled look.

"Yes, a man told me to give this to a blond American woman that will come to this phone at ten." Buffy looked suspiciously at the box, then the boy.

"What man?"

The boy shrugged. "A man, I don't know. Gave me ten euros to give this to you. Oh, and a message, too"

"A message?"

The boy looked up at the sky for a second, trying to remember. "It went like this, 'We thought you could use a three hour extension. If you wish to purchase more, let us know, you have credit for another seven.'"

"Is that all?"

"That's all," said the boy, "Then he got into a blue fiat and drove away."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alberto Tartaglia was pouring himself a glass of wine when he thought he heard a commotion outside the room. The kids were supposed to be upstairs asleep, and the wife, while prone to throwing dishes and vases, wouldn't do it out there with him at home, she always preferred a target. He moved towards the study doors just as they were thrown off the hinges.

"I was beginning to wonder what was keeping you," smirked Tartaglia. Buffy didn't answer, but menacingly approached the mobster.

"Hey, hey, " Tartaglia raised his arms in a sign of surrender. "I've been a good boy, I got the information you wanted." Buffy stopped, still without dropping a word.

"The name is Adriano Chelli. He is the Capo in Napoli. Vizzini trusts him more than his own sons. He got here two days ago with a couple of other guys that no one's heard of, " Tartaglia took a long sip from the glass and continued. "They got a couple of cars from Consta Moisiu, the Albanian mechanic on the south side. Stolen, of course, but with proper paperwork and plates. They inquired about discrete residences, too, but didn't like what they were offered. I would guess they found something elsewhere."

"What does he look like?" Buffy finally spoke.

"Chelli? Young guy, late twenties. About meter eighty, seventy five kilos or so. Wears a big golden pinky ring."

"Tattoos?"

"Probably, but nothing visible."

"Cars' descriptions, license plates"

"Couldn't get them, you'll need to talk to Consta personally." Tartaglia picked up a small paper and handed it to the Slayer. "This is the shop's address."

Buffy took the paper and put it in her jeans pocket.

"This is your life, here," she said. "You better not have lied to me."

"Break my face once, shame on you. Break my face twice, shame on me," smiled Tartaglia, scratching his bandaged nose. Once Buffy disappeared through the now doorless doorway, he took out his cell phone and carefully stepped into the corridor.

"You know the grease monkey you talked with at Moisiu shop?" he spoke to the person on the other end as he walked. "This is not getting traced back to us, do you understand? No, someone is heading there right now. Take care of this once she leaves." Tartaglia hung up. That cocksucker Chelli thinks he can just stroll onto his turf and stir trouble? Let's see him handle this crazy bitch. He stopped at the front door and sighed looking at once again unconscious Roberto slumped over the wall with his head jammed through the boards. "I really should get more bodyguards."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The main conference room was reminiscent of a scene in a police detective movie. The slayers were typing away at computers, answering phones. Samira was the first to see Buffy enter and tugged Stefka on the sleeve to get her attention.

"I have dispatched everyone except for the strike team to sweep the city." she said, running up to the Slayer. "The rest are checking all the city cameras for the plates you've given us. It's just a matter of time."

"Time we don't have," Buffy answered grimly, "Where's Willow?"

Before Stefka could answer her, Buffy's phone broke out into a high pitched version of "Night on the Bald Mountain".

"Where, the hell, are you?" she shouted into the microphone.

"Milan, I'm boarding a plane right now," the witch sounded tired, almost resigned.

"Milan? Plane?!"

"Whatever is blocking the locator spell, is messing with my teleportation. I've been bouncing all over Europe and North Africa. Milan is the closest I've been able to get. I decided it'll be safer to just fly from here than risk ending up in the middle of the Sahara again."

Buffy closed her eyes trying hard to maintain self control.

"How long?"

"Including the drive from the airport? Two hours at most. Will that work? When is the exchange?"

Willow didn't get her answer as Buffy was bashing the phone against the desk in a fit of frustrated fury. The work and conversation in the room stopped as everyone was staring at Buffy with fearful curiosity. Finally she stopped and unclenched her fist. What could only be qualified as phone dust sipped through her fingers onto the floor.

"Give me your phone," she turned to Samira.

"Mine has terrible reception..." she scrambled, "And the battery is low... take Kate's."

"Mine?" the freckled redhead jumped up. "It's even worse. It barely functions... Actually I pawned it," she sank guiltily into back into her chair, "I'll get it back, I swear!"

"Here," Stefka handed Buffy hers, "What did Willow say?"

"Her teleportation spell is not working well; she's taking a plane from Milan." The words were coming out slowly, mechanically as Buffy was looking past Stefka, half lost in her own thoughts.

"Wait a minute, if Willow can't do teleportation, how are we supposed to get to the Vizzini compound?" Buffy walked out of the room without answering.

"So what do we do?" Samira asked Stefka.

"You and your decrepit phone are coming with me. The rest of you, keep searching for Dawn!" she shouted running out after Buffy. They caught up with her on the basement stairwell. Buffy was jumping over flights, reaching the storage area in less than thirty seconds.

"Why didn't Willow tell us sooner?" she heard Stefka from behind. "If she told us she was having issues, four hours ago, we could have charted a plane, shipped our team to Sicily ahead of time."

"She couldn't," Buffy was fast walking past the armory and into the artifact storage, speeding up her pace each time Stefka and Samira tried to cover the ten meters separating them. "That's always the trouble with our little group. Each of us thinks she can fix her mess without help from the others. It almost never works; just messes up things more. But we keep doing it. We all do it." She emerged out of the restricted vault with the Scythe in her hands. "That's our nature."

Stefka put her hand on the Slayer's shoulder as she was about to walk past her.

"You can't do this, Buffy"

"I have no other option," Buffy headed to the door, but Stefka stepped in her way.

"This was never an option. We'll do all we can to get Dawn back. We'll risk our very lives, but giving them the Scythe would endanger the entire world."

"I don't care. I won't have anymore pieces of my sister given to me."

"Parreli said the fingers were cut off as soon as she was taken, before they even contacted you. She might already be dead." Buffy stepped around Stefka without saying a word. The latter put herself between Buffy and the door again.

"What you are doing is wrong, Buffy."

The Slayer looked at Samira behind her, then looked back at her star student and smirked.

"I remember we had a conversation once. You were saying something about you and me, about practice fights versus ones that really matter. Which one do you think this will be?" She stepped around Stefka once more. This time the tall blond stood still.

"This can't be good," said Samira as soon as Buffy disappeared in the stairwell. "We should call Mr. Giles."

"No," Stefka answered, her voice a little shaken. "Nothing has changed. We still storm Vizzini compound, only now we're looking for the Scythe instead of Dawn. We need a plane, vans. Maybe helicopters," she sounded more confident with each sentence uttered. "Come on".

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was close to midnight when Adriano Chelli arrived back at the safe house. Naldo stood watch in the doorway. Sat watch would be more accurate as he slumped against the door, smoking.

"Shit!" he exclaimed noticing Chelli, "Is it time already? I haven't gotten a turn since dinner!" The capo gave him a puzzled look. "They promised me one more turn at least! You tell them they'll be sorry if they welsh on me!"

Chelli grabbed Naldo by the collar and lifted him to his feet.

"Shut the fuck up, and stand watch properly," he whispered angrily. The sheer unprofessionalism of the men assigned to him drove him crazy. None of this made much sense, the team, the target, the rough treatment he was ordered to give her, but he has learned never to question old man Vizzini. If he was given these freaks and charged with obtaining a big shiny metal axe, then the big shiny metal axe he shall deliver. He stepped inside the dark house and took the creaking stairs into the basement. In the sparsely lit room two men were playing cards. The room stank of alcohol, smoke, and sweat. The grunting in the far corner stopped and the third man approached Chelli, zipping up.

"Look who's back!" he smiled crookedly and scratched his beard. "What do you guys say we let him ahead of the line?"

"I don't have time for this shit," he could barely contain his disdain. If these were his men, he'd whip them into shape long ago, but as they were hand picked by the Don there was no telling what kind of connections they had, "We're leaving for the exchange in thirty minutes. I want her cleaned up and presentable by that time, you got it?"

"Sure thing, Capitan," said the dealer. "We promised Naldo, one more shot, though. The poor guy has been all by himself up there for hours."

"Right, " his partner sneered. "Why don't you go get him?"

"Screw you! You just want to slip one in, while I'm up there, you know it's my turn. Why don't you get him, Carlos?"

The bearded man took a beer bottle from the table and shook his head.

"I had guard duty the last time, I'm staying here."

"Oh, for the love of God, I'll get him!" Chelli gladly rushed back upstairs. A few more minutes with these assholes and he'd definitely shoot every last one of them. When he came out, Naldo was again sitting at the bottom of the steps, but with a young gypsy girl next to him.

"What the fuck are you doing now?"

"I'm getting my fortune told, " smiled the gangster. "She's really good."

"I can tell you your fortune, you idiot. In about thirty seconds you'll be without your wallet and watch."

"I'm no thief, Mister," Zemfira smiled coyly at Chelli. The girl looked about eleven, her raven black hair pulled back into two braids prominently displaying her round gold earrings, far too large for the tiny ears they were attached to. She stood up and walked over to him.

"Let me see your hand, and I'll tell you what's to come. If you don't like it, you don't pay."

"They are waiting for you downstairs," Chelli turned to Naldo, "You have ten minutes, no more. I'll stay here."

As Naldo disappeared inside the house, the girl took Chelli's hand and started tracing it with her small, thin fingers.

"You love line looks bright, " she said almost singing the words. "There's an obstacle there that is about to be removed. The money line is even stronger; you're expecting a big windfall very soon."

"You are quite good, " he smirked. "What else do you see?"

"Your life line... interesting..." the girl fell quiet, her head almost buried in his palm.

"What about my life line, gypsy?"

Zemfira turned her face towards him, the moonlight glistened off her long fangs.

"It looks like it's run its course," the vampire growled.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Through the dirty ceiling of the phone booth the moon looked brownish with a green tint. The square was surprisingly empty. In Rome, tourists strolled about every street at all hours of the day. Even this out of the way place was packed when she came here the first time, but in the past half hour Buffy watched the last of the crowd melt away like a root beer float. She glanced at the phone again. It was five minutes till they call with the drop off place. She had nothing to do, but watch the moonlight play in the blade of the Scythe at her feet. A phone ring immediately brought Buffy out of her trance. She momentarily grabbed for receiver before realizing the ringing was coming from her cell phone.

"Did you have Alice stake out Tartaglia?" said Stefka as soon as Buffy picked up.

"Yes."

"She just called"

"Why would she call you?"

"Because I activated a new phone with your number. You have mine, remember? Somebody is trying to kill him."

"What?"

"Alice saw two armed men dispose of the outside guard and enter the apartment. It looks like an assassination in progress. Are we protecting Tartaglia or just tailing him?"

"Strictly surveillance."

"Alright. I'll have her call the police. I'll let you know if this is related to Dawn as soon as I find out anything." Stefka quickly hung up, but Buffy stared at the phone for a few moments. This can't be good. Even if Tartaglia's assassination was just a coincidence she still lost a valuable source of information in case Dawn is not returned. She shook her head trying to clear her mind of these unpleasant thoughts, but the horrors of the worst case scenario kept creeping inside. Again the phone rang, and once more Buffy grabbed for the booth receiver instead of her cell phone.

"What is it now?" she whisper shouted. Somebody was crying on the other end.

"Buffy?"

"Andrew? This is a bad time. Call Stefka," she said frustrated.

"I thought I did."

"Right. She has my number now," she was about to hang up.

"They are all dead," she heard.

"Who's dead?"

"Everyone," the young man whispered, "Everyone at the compound."

"Vizzini's compound? What happened?"

"It was all burning and they kept shooting and shooting..," the young man's speech became unintelligible again.

"Andrew, calm down, are you in danger?"

"No," He suddenly stopped crying, his voice now calm and somber. "They left. They killed everyone and left. If they saw me, they didn't care."

"Who are 'they'?" Buffy was trying hard not to spook Andrew, but anger and frustration were sipping into her voice. She was supposed to receive the drop off call six minutes ago and deep in her gut a terrifying realization was beginning to rise that she will never receive that call.

"They were jumping out the windows... women... kids... burning... and they just kept shooting, and shooting, and shooting, and..." A call waiting signal interrupted Andrew's babbling.

"Just stay put. Stay out of sight," she added anxiously "Someone will come and get you." She switched to the other caller, "Yes?"

"Buffy," Stefka's voice was worried and unsteady. "I was just looking at the latest pictures of the compound..."

"Andrew just called," Buffy interrupted, "He's in shock. What the hell is happening there?"

"There was an attack; an assault helicopter with support on the ground. The building went up in flames. I can't tell if it was the helicopter missiles or explosives inside the compound." There was a pause. Buffy could hear the frantic mouse clicking on the other end as Stefka was flipping through the pictures on her computer, "The shooters seemed to cover every exit," she continued, "I don't think anyone made it out. I don't think Dawn was there," she quickly added, "If she ever was there they had to move her for the hand off long before. They will probably call soon."

"No, they won't," said Buffy. For a moment, while Stefka spoke, she almost fainted, but a second adrenalin wind kicked in allowing her to temporarily collect herself, "They most likely have heard of what's going on and are either hiding or running from whoever is wiping out the family. We have to find them first. Where's Willow?"

"She's here. Almost. Samira is driving her from the airport."

"I want her to get the locator spell going. I don't care what she has to do. I want people deployed to airports, train stations, and bus terminals. Whoever is left I want them canvassing the city. Knock on doors if they have to. We have the plates, the color, and make of the stupid van! I want it found!" She eased up a little as she felt the cell phone starting to crack in her tight grasp. "We have a few more Vizzini related contacts besides Tartaglia," Buffy said a little more calmly. "I'll take those since they might also be targeted for assassination. Check in with me every half hour or in case of anything call worthy," she hung up, gave the silent pay phone one last glance, and walked out of the booth.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The leads were evaporating faster than they appeared. The informants Buffy managed to find alive knew nothing about the hits, and the dead ones weren't much for talking. It was close to four in the morning when she got a call from Stefka. It was only twenty minutes since the last and that meant she had something.

"We found the van," she said. From the depressed tones in Stefka's voice it was clear she didn't think of it as good news.

"Where?"

"Just outside the city. Firefighters were called in for a fire due to explosion. I had Kate check it out. They found what once was a van in what used to be a garage. The plates were half melted, but we've got a partial match. She talked to the neighbors and they said there were men periodically standing at the front door. The descriptions match our kidnappers. The firefighters found some body pieces, but they don't yet know how many people, or if there were any female remains..." The rest of the conversation was a blur. She thought she told Stefka to keep the search going, but she wasn't sure. Just as she wasn't sure how long she has been wondering the streets afterward. It was still very dark, but the air smelled of the coming sun. Buffy waited for it with dread. In the light of the new day the events of this one will seem so much more real, so final. As the first sign of the reality reared its ugly head, Buffy started to feel the advent of physical exhaustion. She hasn't eaten or even sat down in over sixteen hours. She plunked herself in a chair on the sidewalk and looked around. She might not have paid attention to the streets she was walking, but her subconscious has guided her to within a few blocks of her apartment. The table and chairs on the sidewalk belonged to Dino's Pizzeria, the owner must have forgotten to bring them inside for the night. Buffy slowly traced the table pattern with her hand. It must have been the same table she sat at two days ago...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"I knew I'd find you here with your coffee".

Buffy looked up, squinting at the bright sun. Her sister was standing over her, backpack on one shoulder.

"No you didn't, " she said pushing out one of the chairs with her foot. "This is your favorite pizza place. I never been here for coffee before in my life."

"Not true, " Dawn said, setting down her things. "According to Plato you always come here."

"It's Wednesday. Fourth period was Classical philosophy. I keep blocking it out," Buffy mumbled into her cup.

"Plato says that all creation is derived from heavenly templates which are perfect forms of each thing," continued Dawn paying no attention to Buffy's words. "A perfect horse, a perfect Slayer, a perfect coffee shop. And all the coffee shops are nothing more than imperfect shadows of the actual thing. So, wherever you go, you're always wasting your mornings and afternoons in the same coffee place."

"Interesting," Buffy took another sip. "Only wouldn't I then be wasting this morning in a crooked version of The Pizza Place, instead of The Coffee Shop?"

"Not if you're only drinking coffee," Dawn responded, a little unsure.

"I see. So if you were eating your usual sausage and mushroom you'd be in a different place than I am?"

"I guess. Yes."

"Excellent!" Buffy smiled. "Then hurry up and order."

Dawn shook her head in a mock disapproval.

"What is this fascination with solitude you have acquired? You know I could be a little more tolerant of you spending your days caffeinating yourself into a frenzy if you at least didn't do it alone. I'm sure this city has plenty of lazy slobs that would be glad to share some Half&Half with you."

"I'm not letting you set me up again," sighed Buffy watching their conversation take the usual turn.

"Okay, Mario was kind of a disaster, but Antonio was good for a few laughs, wasn't he?" said Dawn just as the waiter put the pizza plate in front of her. Buffy watched as the girl took ravenously to the meat, dough, and cheese concoction in front of her. The arrival of food gave Buffy an opportunity to change the unpleasant subject, but her ingrained sarcasm took the better of her.

"Maybe you'll be better at picking boyfriends for me, once you get one yourself," she said.

"You are totally right," Dawn responded with a full mouth. "My personal life is so pathetic. I mean my seventeenth birthday came and went and I still haven't slept with a vampire."

Buffy couldn't help chuckling. She loved Dawn's comebacks, almost as an art form, even when they came at her expense.

"Speaking of the handsome and supernatural, " continued the younger Summers, "How about a certain someone who keeps sending you flowers, candy, and an occasional demon head?"

"I'm not going out with the Immortal," came a quick reply.

"Why not? He is smart. He is charming. He's beyond gorgeous. And I am eighty percent confident he is not evil."

"Well, if it's eighty percent.."

"I'm not saying, 'marry him'. Have coffee. God knows you doing plenty of that already." Dawn took another slice of pizza and proceeded to chew it thoughtfully. For a while their conversation gave way to the chatter of traffic.

"You know I've been reading up on retirement depression," Dawn began again.

"Is that the perfect heavenly Depression reflected through the prism of old age?" said Buffy as the waiter refilled her cup.

"Ha-ha. Very funny. It's actually very pertinent."

"Clearly. Except for the retired and depressed part. If you're done spiking that fanta..."

"Oh? Let's examine your case shall we?" said Dawn handing her sister back the sugar bowl.

"God, I miss California schools where kids don't actually learn anything," sighed Buffy.

"You've been the Slayer since you were fifteen," Dawn continued. "Protecting the world from demons, vampires, corduroy pants, and other forces of evil. You had a destiny. You were the Chosen ONE."

Buffy rolled her eyes. She knew exactly where her sister was going.

"Sure, a little later Faith came along, but Miss Knife-Wielding-Psycho only emphasized the importance of your chosiness..."

"'Chosiness?'"

"'Chosination'? 'Chosinosity'? The point is that now, thanks to Willow, there are more slayers than you can shake a stick at, and for the first time in eight years you are free to do whatever it is you want to do. Only you don't know what it is, so you sulk. It's classic," Dawn leaned back in the chair and bit off a huge chunk of pizza as though rewarding herself for a well made point.

"I know very well what I want to do," Buffy answered methodically blending sugar into her coffee. "It's called chilling continental style. You sit in a cafe on a sidewalk, sip really good coffee from a really tiny cup, and stare at the passers by. All I need is to take up smoking and I'll be all set."

Dawn shook her head. "It's all an act," she said trying not to spray the food she was chewing. "You don't really like it."

"No, I love it."

"Please! Life without duties and responsibilities thy name is not Buffy."

For a moment Buffy looked intently at the young woman in front of her. Her long, flowing brown hair accented the swan-like neck and the large gray eyes stared back lovingly and playfully. "She turned out prettier than I am," Buffy thought without a hint of jealousy.

"I still have responsibilities," she said out loud. "I have to keep an eye on you. And the way you go for that last slice of pizza, you're more ferocious than any hell hound. Plus there's something quite evil about you eating two thousand calories a meal without gaining an ounce..."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The cell phone rang. Always guarded against frittering her time away on frivolities, Stefka never configured her phone. The persistent, annoying factory ring slowly brought Buffy back to reality. She collected herself, wiping away the tears, and took the call just as it was about to go to voice mail.

"I found her!" Willow's voice was trembling, "The spell, it worked. She's alive; she's at your apartment! Buffy? Buffy?!" Buffy didn't hear her anymore, she was running.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy burst through the door, slightly panting from the fast run. The apartment was dark and quiet. She clearly got here ahead of Willow or Stefka.

"Dawn?" she called out, rushing into the living room. The room was very dimly lit by the light coming from the kitchen. Buffy was about to run there when she noticed her sister sitting on the corner of the couch, staring at the floor. Both of her hands were bandaged. The Slayer rushed towards her, sweeping her up in a tight hug. She then pulled away taking Dawn's head in her hands, looking into the girl's face. It was freshly and skillfully made up, but dark bruises still peaked through the foundation and even the heavy eye shadow could not hide the redness from constant crying and lack of sleep. As their eyes met, it seemed Dawn noticed Buffy for the first time, She put her hands on the Slayers back and gently pulled her closer. They hugged again, Buffy guiding Dawn's head to her shoulder.

"You are safe now", she spoke softly, slowly stroking her hair. "It's all going to be alright".

"You're correct, miss Summers. But it will take a little bit of work on your part as well." Buffy quickly pulled Dawn behind her. Now that her eyes had a little time to adjust she could see a silhouette in the far corner of the room. "Do not be alarmed," the man continued. "I'm here to help. Continue helping, to be more accurate."

"You are the one who's been killing Vizzinis," Buffy turned on the floor lamp close by. It was still hard to make out the person sitting in the far chair. He was dressed in a dark suit and shoes. His right hand rested on a cane, while his left was propping up his chin, hiding the part of his face that was not covered by large round sunglasses. His English was far better than Buffy's Italian, but the hard r's gave away his Slavic origins.

"Why?"

"It's my job," came a short reply.

Buffy smirked.

"What are you, some secret government bureau in charge killing mobsters and their kids?"

"No, miss Summers. I'm the Arbitrator."

"The what?"

"The Arbitrator. I mediate disputes, conflicts, and enforce agreements with fair and, very importantly, binding decisions. By kidnapping your sister Vizzinis have violated the terms of an agreement between your organizations. Being hired as the Arbitrator on that agreement it was my duty to act."

For a few seconds Buffy simply stared at the man in the chair. Who, the hell, was this guy?

"I never had any agreements with Vizzinis and I definitely didn't hire you to arbitrate anything."

"No, the head of the Watchers' Council, the late Mr. Traverse, was the signatory on your end. Now, it's true that your organization has underwent a serious restructuring and even a name change, but as far as I'm concerned you're still the party on the agreement I arbitrate with all the advantages and liabilities it implies. If you lost your copy, another one can be provided."

"Do that. I'll a take look and we'll discuss it later," said Buffy, pointing to the door.

"Yes, we will. But I did not come here to simply pay my respects. There's a pressing business matter to attend to." His answers were curt, but the tone was calm and measured. Buffy had a hard time telling if she was pissing him off, and while it might not have been the wisest course of action, she wanted to very much. Vizzinis have escaped her wrath, but the man in front of her was clearly a mobster and a murderer as they were. Did it matter that he was temporarily on her side?

"Good, we're finally cutting through the bullshit. So what do you want?" Her curiosity was fighting a loosing battle with her anger.

"Rome is no Moscow and Modica is no Zhitomir. The Italians won't stand for houses being blown up with missiles and broad daylight executions. There will be a crack down on organized crime. Crackdowns are bad for business. The remaining families will hold you responsible. Myself as well, of course, that's why I'm here, I have a plan to avoid a confrontation."

"So do I. I give them your head on a stick as a warning to all the gangsters who think they can screw with me."

"That's a valid plan, but mine is much easier to implement and is bloodless," The man in the chair seemed to pay no attention to Buffy's threats or frustration. He continued to speak in the same robotic tone, his left hand, once propping up his chin, was slowly drifting higher up his face. It seemed as though he was bored with his own words.

"Vizzinis are leaving behind considerable assets," the man continued. "The legitimate ones such as restaurants, real estate, and bank accounts will go to next of kin. The illicit ones such as smuggling routes, cocaine distribution network, illegal waste dumps, protection racket, and prostitution now belong to you."

"Great, and here I was wondering what's missing from my life. Apparently it was the ho's."

"I understand these are hardly the enterprises you want to get involved in. That is why you should use them to buy off the other families. Distribute them fairly and at a discount price and situation will be resolved peacefully."

"And I suppose you want a piece, too?"

"I do not. My income is derived from a percentage of the cash flow generated as the result of treaties I arbitrate. Having businesses of my own would damage my impartiality. I do, however, expect that given my track record you will choose me to arbitrate the agreements you make with the families. I will make sure the compensation you're entitled to is paid in full."

"I'm not interested in mob money".

"It doesn't have to be money, Miss Summers. The mob often trades in favors. Collectively the families own quite a few politicians, judges, and the police. The Watchers' Council would not have been as effective at their work, latest fiasco excluded, if it had not used government resources. "

How do you get rid of this guy?

"I'll think about it," was the best Buffy could come up with. Leshii stood up from the chair and limped up to the Slayer, stopping just an uncomfortable few inches before her. He was about a meter eighty, thin, dressed in expensive black suit. He was dragging his right foot, propping himself up with a cane, also black, with richly gilded handle. Black round sunglasses hid most of his face. There was something a little off about his nose and mouth at close proximity and it occurred to Buffy that he was wearing a mask or heavy, movie-style makeup.

"My card," he handed her a usual rectangular piece of carton. "Do not take too long, the window of opportunity is limited." He opened the apartment door and walked out. Buffy quickly locked it behind him.

"I should go to bed." Dawn's words were almost a whisper. It wasn't clear if she was talking to her sister or herself. She started walking, but tripped on the coffee table and nearly lost her balance. Buffy caught her, lifted her in her arms, and carried the girl into her bedroom. She undressed her and tucked her in and when Dawn opened her eyes twelve hours later the first thing she saw was Buffy sitting on the floor at the foot of her bed, just like she was when she closed them.


	2. Chapter 2: Deal

**Chapter 2: Deal**

Giles stopped about two meters into the bedroom and glanced around. Rome had three two bedroom suites allocated for visitors. He wondered if this was the same one he stayed at six weeks ago. Then again they are probably all furnished alike. Kate followed the Watcher inside with the suitcases.

"There's no need to trouble yourself, you may just leave those by the door"

"It's no trouble, none at all!" Kate responded eagerly, "Which one are you going to unpack first? I'll set it on the bed"

"You've been very helpful, thank you," Giles smiled, but the girl would not relent.

"I'll leave the one with clothes near the closet and the one with books, here, by the book case. How's that?" Before Giles could answer the girl rushed to the window and opened the blinds, "There, nice and bright. Anything else you need?" Giles look over at the young slayer standing straight as an arrow with a wide, helpful smile plastered on her face and chuckled.

"Looking at a very long week till the stipend day, aren't you Kate?"

The girl blushed and lowered her eyes.

"Here," Giles handed her a twenty euro note, "This should help tie you over"

"Thank you, sir!" the girl hollered and grabbing the money out of his hand flew out the door nearly knocking down Willow in the process.

"Welcome to Rome, Giles," the witch smiled cheerfully, "How was your flight?"

"It was pleasant enough. I did get quite a few strange glances at the airport when I let a teenage girl carry my entire luggage"

"But once you explained to them she's a slayer with supernatural strength and stamina it was alright?"

"Absolutely. They were most understanding," the Watcher played along. "How are things here?" He grabbed the bag Kate set next to the book case and pulled it up onto the bed.

"Dawn is doing well. Too well, Buffy seems to think. You expect there to be a shock period, but it's over a week and it just looks like she's still not dealing, suppressing."

"Yes, that's why Buffy asked me to come."

"It's not like we can take her to a psychiatrist. It's all about opening up and if she starts opening up about her life, with demons, vampires, and all, she'll be committed."

"What about the Scythe? Do we know who wanted it and why?"

"No, it's still open," answered Willow looking over Giles' shoulder as he unpacked. Among other things the suitcase was full of psychiatry books and she was very curious to see how his choices matched up against the sources she used.

"And Leshii, what do we know of him?"

"Nothing, really. Buffy met with heads of the families last week, " she quickly added. "Everything seems settled on that front."

"You have nothing on either Scythe or Leshii? What have you been doing all this time?"

"Taking care of Dawn?" Willow sounded slightly apologetic.

"All of you?" Giles seemed quite annoyed.

"Not all of us," came loud and sternly from behind. He turned around to see Buffy in the doorway, "Just the ones who care."

"I didn't mean..." Giles began.

"Forget it," the Slayer cut him off. "Take the rest of the night to unpack and... whatever. You have your first appointment with Dawn tomorrow at ten." Giles took off his glasses and wiped them slowly with a handkerchief looking at the grim face of his former pupil, now his boss. Despite being many years in the making he found himself completely unprepared for the switch. A heartfelt hug and a few words of comfort and fatherly wisdom he would readily confer upon her before now felt inappropriate at best. Just like when they met eight years ago, the young woman before him was a stranger he had to learn anew. He knew very well that this newly created distance and discrete professionalism that was permeating his words and actions the last few months have been driving Buffy crazy, but this Giles is what this Buffy, the Chairman of the Slayer Council needed.

"I doubt this is going to work," he spoke putting his glasses back on. "The reason people are able to confide in a psychiatrist is because he is a stranger, existing apart from the patient's daily life."

"Given how much you've been around the past two years, it shouldn't be a problem," Buffy shot back and walked out. Willow hesitated for a moment, then giving Giles a hurried "good night" ran after her. She could have easily teleported them home, but Buffy disliked using magic for something this mundane. Samira volunteered to drive them back to the apartment. It's not every day you get to listen in on the head honchos, but much to her chagrin her passengers remained silent the entire ride.

"You don't know," Buffy's thoughts ran in answer to the question pushed into her mind, "He's not the same with you. Actually, he's the same with you. I talk to him and I hear Traverse. So distinguished, dutiful, detached, a Watcher. How do you turn into a man you hated for twenty years?" Buffy paused, taking in Willow's expression. For a second the witch thought she wanted an answer, but Buffy continued. "You're not totally wrong. I'm sure I'm projecting a lot of it. Dead mother, absentee father: abandonment issues galore. Then there's Dawn, of course. I should have been there for her so much more than he should have been. Now, this very distance I've yelled at him for will let him help her where I can't. So, I guess you are right after all, I am a hypocrite. But I'm not sorry for what I said."

She needed this ride. There was something very soothing about the engine purring in tune with whatever Persian ditty Samira was humming; beautiful scenery floating by the window. Buffy always felt she belonged in back seat of a car. Not, in the naughty High School way, but in a tranquil sanctuary way. In a life as hectic as Buffy's others might have welcomed a chance to control at least one aspect of it, but Slayer was spending so much of her time navigating the crap the Universe kept throwing her way that letting go of everything and still knowing she would get where she was supposed to go was Heaven to her. As little as she could remember of it.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She wasn't sure how she got there or what 'here' exactly was. She was walking down a corridor or a possibly room, it was too dark to tell how close the ghostly walls really were. Dawn kept walking as something far in front of her was drawing her attention. Ahead was a door which she opened to reveal an old wooden staircase, barely lit. The basement was clearly the source of Cyndi Lauper's ringing voice that she has been following. As she descended lower, the song grew louder, but the light dimmed. The basement was pitch black. No matter how hard she strained Dawn could not distinguish a single item except for the tiny gypsy vampire in the middle of the room. Zemfira was dancing in an offbeat childlike way to the peppy music and singing along, "Girls - they want to have fun! Oh, girls just want to have fun..."

"Dawn!"

Dawn turned around and saw Buffy standing in the doorway. She wore an apron and rubber gloves.

"Look at this!" She motioned behind her sister with the "409" spray in her left hand. "Mom is going to have a fit! Well, I'm not cleaning this up!" She turned and walked out, slamming the door behind her. At this moment Dawn recognized her old Sunnydale bedroom. Zemfira was gone, so was the music. She looked around. The bookshelves were there just as they were supposed to be, filled with books and toys. The bed was made up, covered neatly with a pink comforter. Dawn could not understand what made Buffy so upset. "My animals," she suddenly realized, "they must have fallen off the bed." She walked over to other side, but as she reached out to pick up the stuffed giraffe she pulled back cringing. She kept backing away from the pile of mutilated human bodies until her back pressed against the locked bedroom door and she could move no further. Dawn watched, shaking in horror, as the thick blood oozing from the corpses spread slowly across the floor saturating every inch of the carpet as it moved towards her bare feet. "Slippers", she kept whispering to herself. "Mom always told me to wear slippers."

Dawn opened her eyes. The night was slowly melting away outside the window, but the bedroom was still shrouded in darkness except for the eerie green glow of the alarm clock digits. "Two minutes before the official sunrise time," she thought to herself. "And the streak lives on. They should put me up in Sevres, right between the Kilogram and the atomic clock." She threw open the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, "Or maybe a barn. Cock-a-doodle-doo." She got into the shower and turned on hot water.

Wrapped snugly into her bathrobe now Dawn found Willow sitting on the living room floor with all kinds of jars, vials, and Ziploc bags all around her.

"Someone's started work early, " she said.

"Well it was either this or lying on the couch trying to tune out the sound of a blow dryer at six in the morning," the redhead replied grumpily. Time zone difference has been playing havoc with Willow's sleep schedule even after almost two weeks.

"Sorry," said Dawn crumbling Willows already crumbled sheets onto the far end of the couch. "What's with the chemistry set?"

"It's for you, actually," said the witch dropping a pinch of purple powder into the mixing bowl.

"For me?" Dawn stood up from the couch and looked suspiciously into the bowl.

"It's a memory spell." Willow put ten drops of clear liquid from one of the jars and began to stir.

"How does it work?"

"Very simple," Willow added an eye of newt and began to mesh it into the mixture. "We drink this, which would allow our minds to link up then I'll be able take a crack at the blank spots in your memory."

Dawn swallowed hard.

"I don't need a memory spell," she said as calmly as possible.

"Of course you do. We know Leshii got to the safe house before midnight, but the explosion did not occur until four in the morning. You were brought to Buffy's apartment half an hour later. Judging by the condition of the corpses found at the house, Leshii spent the time in between interrogating Vizzinis minions. I'd like to know what they told him."

"Why? The godfather is dead. They are all dead."

"No, " Willow dripped some blue liquid into the mixture. "Whoever cast the locator blocking spell is still alive. And something tells me that that's the person who wanted the Scythe."

"Vizzini was a sorcerer, he cast the spell," said Dawn without taking her eyes off the bowl that was now slightly smoking.

"Persistent spells, Dawnie, work by continuously tapping the life force of the caster. If the caster dies, the spell collapses. This one didn't. Without renewal it's been steadily degrading as days passed, but it's still around"

"Maybe Vizzini faked his death. Planted a fake body with the same dental work and one actual tooth that would have his DNA and... What?"

"I see Andrew finally talked you into watching 'Alias'," Willow snickered. "But even if you're right, the information Leshii extracted from his prisoners may point to where he went."

"Then ask Leshii, I was unconscious!"

Willow looked up at the girl confused.

"I know, you don't need to get angry. Most times unconscious people can hear what's going on. It registers. Even if they cannot remember..."

"But you can't tell which blank spots are which until you pop them, can you?" Dawn was almost shouting now.

"I guess not..."

"Maybe there are things I don't want to remember." The last sentence was almost a whisper, but it rang loudest for Willow because it was true. She walked over to the girl and gently took her hands.

"I'm sorry, Dawnie, I didn't think. I'm so sorry."

"What's going on?" The argument has woken up Buffy. The Slayer was standing in the doorway wincing at the bright light of the living room.

"I brought up the memory spell and..." Willow began.

"You knew? And you allowed it?" Dawn's voice trembled as she tried hard not to yell.

"I allowed her to ask you. If you don't want to do it you don't have to," yawned Buffy.

"Well I don't"

"Then don't."

"Fine"

"Fine, " Buffy yawned again. "Do you need anything? Ice-cream, maybe?"

"No, there's still some left over," Dawn sat back down on the couch still shying away from making eye contact with her sister. This persistent quirk in her behavior since the incident has been scratching painfully at Buffy's heart, but she was much too tired to agonize about it at the moment.

"Okay. I'm going back in there then. If nobody needs anything," was all she managed to blurt out and shuffled back into her bedroom.

"She's spaced. When did she get back?"

"I don't exactly know, " Willow shrugged, "Sometime between four and five, maybe?"

Dawn shook her head.

"This has to qualify as harassment. Four in the morning? They can't do that."

"Our lawyers have been advising full cooperation. The whole country is up in arms over Leshii. You don't want to needlessly irritate the authorities."

For a while Dawn looked on as Willow crawled on the floor packing her magic supplies into her purse. As the jars, plates, and plastic packets disappeared inside the small bag she remembered the first time she saw Marry Poppins. She was sitting on the floor, mom and dad on the couch behind her. Buffy was there, too, on the other end. The deliberate sour look on her face was meant as a sign of protest to being subjected to a little kids' movie in her mature eleven years. Family night. Dawn's stomach spasmed. She wasn't sure if she was going to vomit or pass out.

"We should sick Wolfram&Hart on them," she picked up the conversation again, trying to distract herself from the images. "Didn't they offer to represent us pro bono?"

"Yes, pro bono. The only cost is our immortal souls."

"Seriously, Willow, you won't even consider it?"

"Seriously, Dawn, I was quoting the fine print. Listen," the witch continued in the most authoritative tone she could muster as she saw the girl roll her eyes. "They already co-opted Angel and his crew. I am not letting them get even a toe in this door."

"It's just...Everybody is pushing her and nobody is any help," said Dawn quietly, giving Buffy's door a guilty stare.

"She can handle herself," replied Willow. "It's you everybody is worried about. Buffy being first and foremost. If you want to help her, help yourself."

"What do you want me to do?"

"For starters, how about taking Giles' sessions a little more seriously?"

Dawn shrugged.

"I'm fine. Really. It's a pointless waste of time. Not that my time is worth anything, but I'm sure Giles could be doing something useful."

"If Giles thinks this is useful, then so should you."

"Fine. Come ten o'clock I'll be most cooperative patient since Tony Soprano."

"Hand me that vial, paisan," Willow smiled.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The room could have been very bright if it wasn't for heavy curtains covering the window. The sun still shone through, filling the space with soft, comforting bluish tones. Giles, not exactly a short man to begin with sat on a massive wooden chair, practically towering over the rest of the furniture. Dawn was sitting in the far corner of the couch with her head pressed against her knees, staring at the intricate pattern on the draped fabric. She certainly became less talkative since the incident, but getting a sentence out her here was worse than pulling teeth. "Buffy is right, " thought Giles "She's definitely hiding something"

"Have you been sleeping well?" he finally began the session.

"Well enough," the girl mumbled.

"Any more nightmares?"

A shrug.

"Do you want to tell me about them?"

"It's the same thing," she answered. "Nothing particularly exciting"

"Same rehash of the first assault? No variation?"

Dawn shook her head.

"Textbook," thoughts ran through the watcher's head. "But you've been reading that textbook, too, haven't you, Dawn?"

"And how have you been spending your days?" he said out loud.

"Same. Reading mostly."

"I saw your friends go, 'clubbing', I believe they said, yesterday. They mentioned you didn't want to come. Again."

"I'm not scared. To go out," she said anticipating the direction of the questioning. "It's just... It's not something I want to do anymore."

"Do you feel more comfortable by yourself?"

"No, it's not that. I socialize... I called Xander yesterday. We talked for almost two hours."

"What did you talk about?"

"Just stuff," Dawn stopped kneading the pillow. "I didn't tell, and I told Buffy not to, so he doesn't know. Not everything, I mean. He knows I've been kidnapped, but hey, some baddie snatched up Buffy's defenseless little sister. It's not breaking news, it's regularly scheduled programming. I don't know why I called him."

"Why do you think?"

"Well... Because of you, I guess."

"Me?"

"You came. And Willow is here now. With Xander... Forget it, it's stupid."

"No, I understand. With Xander it would have been just like Sunnydale, your home for seven years. Familiar, safe. You long for normalcy, which is perfectly, well, normal. But you are not in Sunnydale, you are in Rome. Eventually I'll go back to London and Willow will return to Brazil. Perhaps you should consider reconnecting with your normal life here instead. Spend time with your friends. Perhaps go back to school."

Dawn lifted her head, and looked at Giles for the first time.

"Buffy talked to you, didn't she?" she smiled with a crooked smile. She didn't mean it as a rhetorical question, but no answer was coming. "I'm not going back to school," she said as the pause grew too long.

"Why not?"

"Aren't you going to yell at me or otherwise sternly impart on me how important education is, and stuff?"

Giles switched legs, this time putting the right one over left one.

"We've been over this, Dawn. For lack of a better option, I'm here as your psychiatrist. I'm not going to judge you. Do you want me to yell at you?"

She shook her head.

"Not really, although it might be a nice change of pace. Buffy hasn't said 'No' to me since... Two nights ago, just to see what happens, I asked her for gelato at three in the morning. She was out the door before I could even complete the sentence. You'd think I'm pregnant with her child."

"In many ways you are her child."

"More like a bad copy."

Here we go. Finally something worthwhile.

"Why do you say that?" asked Giles deliberately making sure there was nothing in the tone of the question to distinguish it from the others.

"It's true, isn't it? They used her DNA to create me."

"That's not what I meant."

Dawn knew that, of course.

"The bad part. I think that one is pretty obvious," she mumbled.

"So you do not have her powers. You wouldn't have them even if you were her real twin. At any rate, you don't need special powers to matter."

"I guess, " Dawn shrugged, "All kinds of normal people make a difference in the world. Good and bad."

"Precisely. And education will certainly help you achieve that stature."

"Not that kind of education."

"Well, college is just over a year away."

"School, college," Dawn smirked. "It's all part of the same charade. Go to school, get a job, have a family. Life as it meant to be. It's so not going to happen. Not for me."

"Why not?" Giles asked hardly raising his head, he was furiously scribbling in his notebook. After all these sessions the walls were finally starting to crack, "Because of what you've been through?"

"Because of what I'm going to go through! This wasn't the first time someone tried to get to Buffy through me. It won't be the last. I'm always going to be a part of this, the weakest link. It's time for me to face it, fix it."

"Do you have a plan?" Giles continued to lead his pseudo patient along.

Dawn shrugged.

"No, not really. I can start with what I know, I guess. Help out with demon research, spells. Full time. Learn more things as I go."

"Enroll in the Watcher Academy?" Giles asked his head still in the notebook.

"Maybe. I'd like something more practical right away though. Maybe I'll apprentice to Parreli..." Dawn fell silent. She crouched back into her initial position, but this time her eyes were directed at the draped windows. Light breeze was moving the fabric and the light passing through kept changing angles and intensity, altering the shadows cast by the objects in the room. Encouraged by the serene look on Dawn's face Giles decided to go on offensive.

"Buffy has been trying hard to direct you away from her lifestyle. I don't believe she will approve of your choice."

Dawn turned to the Watcher, clearly frustrated.

"I don't care. Let her do her thing, I'll do mine."

"You don't think she's been doing her thing?"

"No."

"I see. Her thing is saving people. She didn't save you."

Dawn kept silent.

"You have to look out for yourself now because she has failed at her job, she failed you..."

"No!" the girl shouted. "That's not what I said! You're twisting it! I am not talking about this anymore!"

Just like that the gates slammed shut. Giles silently cursed himself. The core, it was right there, but once again he pushed too hard. He glanced at the clock. They will stay in the room for another half hour, but it was clear that today's session was essentially over.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The large glossy print had four charred bodies lying near the doorway. The two smaller ones were clearly children. They must have fallen unconscious from the smoke while trying to get out. This was the last photo in the file. The police inspector, having failed to threaten any information out of Buffy, decided to appeal to her sense of decency by giving her a copy of the file on the Modica massacre. Buffy, of course, has already seen the pictures of the actual attack, but the close ups of the aftermath still made her queasy. Despite the subtle desire to vomit into her coffee she continued to peruse the file, hoping to see something in the burnt out ruins that could help her.

"You new friend is quite impressive."

She didn't even look up. This melodious, yet manly voice could only belong to the Immortal, who until inspector Rezinni, was her "designated stalker".

"I'm glad you find mass murder impressive. I'm sure he'll fit right into your crowd," she replied. Realizing the futility of waiting for an invitation the Immortal simply pulled out a chair and sat down. Tall, dark, and with the most piercing black eyes, he looked like a young Arabian prince who has just stepped out of the pages of "A Thousand and One Nights", first prudently exchanging his jewel encrusted robes for an equally expensive designer white suit.

"I find impressive all that approaches perfection, that's why I keep following you." Undeterred by the lack of reaction to his compliment and a glistening, pearly white smile accompanying it, the Immortal continued nonchalantly. "This operation of Leshii's was an epitome of organization. After all, he is able to put together twelve almost simultaneous hits in six different parts of Italy and execute them flawlessly. Take the job at the compound, for example," he pointed to the photos in front of Buffy. "An Akula-class strike helicopter with three people on board lifts off a Belorussian fishing trawler in the neutral waters off Sicily and flies under the NATO radars to its target. At the same time four more gunmen arrive by land in a truck full of helicopter fuel. Four perfectly placed rocket strikes from the chopper set the entire compound ablaze. The cross fire from the land and air takes care of anyone trying to flee the burning building. The end result is a heavily fortified compound with over twenty armed men wiped out in just over half an hour. The helicopter is subsequently re-fueled and flies back to the ship with all seven participants. The other hits were a little more ordinary, but no less efficient."

Buffy finally looked up more than slightly annoyed.

"You are positively giddy over this thug. Do you want me to introduce you two?"

The Immortal continued smiling.

"I just can't get over how good he must be to put all this together in just eight hours. The flight time from Moscow alone is four, plus customs on both sides. I guess all of his twenty two hit men were already here. And why not? Italy is an awesome tourist destination. And the helicopter, well, he probably keeps one off the coast of every country, just in case."

Buffy pushed aside her coffee. The conversation has suddenly gotten interesting.

"Are you saying that the operation was already planned? That Dawn was just an excuse to attack?"

"Perhaps he knew that Dawn will be kidnapped ahead of time. Explains how he managed to find her so easily."

"If he knew that, then why didn't he stop them?"

The Immortal smiled a little wider

"Perhaps because he needed an excuse to attack?"

Buffy leaned in and stared intently into the pitch black eyes of the man across from her.

"Alright, " she said finally "I'll bite. What do you know?"

The Immortal practically gleamed from satisfaction.

"Oh, you will bite alright, if you want to know what I know."

"Huh?"

"Dinner, eight o'clock. Music, candle-light. We talk of cheese, Ice Capades, and Russian gangsters."

It was Buffy's turn to smile.

"Are you trying to bribe me into a date now? This is so sad. The great Immortal, whose smile melts hearts, whose touch makes women faint.."

"Yeah, and I fart Channel Number Five, too," the man interrupted impatiently. "Do you want the scoop or not?"

"Fine. What's the name of the place?" Her voice still sounded agitated and reluctant, but somewhere inside a small part of her was pleased that she found an excuse to spend more time with this dashing individual who has doggedly pursued her for the last four months. The Immortal's smile, which never left his face, kept getting wider and brighter.

"I'll send a car for you," He snapped his fingers and a waiter appeared handing Buffy a dress box.

"You're kidding me," she balked.

"It's a very formal place and it would not be proper of me to expect you to come up with an appropriate outfit on such a short notice. I have tried my best to get something that will measure up to your impeccable tastes. If I have failed," the Immortal shrugged his shoulders contritely "It makes three or four excellent dust cloths."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Giles walked into his room finding Buffy sitting on the window seal. Her tiny figure fit perfectly into the frame.

"Okay," she spoke as soon as he closed the door behind him. "On the scale of one to ten, how much does she hate me?" It was still fairly bright outside, but the dull evening light was already too weak to be of any use inside the building except to make out the expression on Buffy's face as she was resting her head against the glass.

"She doesn't hate you," the Watcher answered quickly and firmly.

"Doesn't she? She won't say more than two sentences to me. She never looks me in the eye."

"She doesn't want to talk about you. She does not say it, but she's quick to change the subject. There are definitely strong feelings there. Her view of you has changed, but I'm not entirely sure in what way."

Buffy took her feet of the seal and turned towards the Watcher.

"What did she say, then?"

True to his nervous habit Giles took off his glasses and began wiping them meticulously with his handkerchief.

"I can't tell you that, you know it."

"You are not an actual therapist, remember?"

"If what Dawn said gets back to her, in the heat of an argument, or a slip of the tongue, the trust will be broken. The progress we have made will be undone."

She didn't argue. Didn't say anything. Just silence. Silence and the look. A crumb, anything. Giles sighed and put his glasses back on.

"She brought up the Key."

"Oh, great. I thought we were through with that!"

"Buffy, it's been eight years and still sometimes you struggle to reconcile being a Slayer with other aspects of your life. When you find out you are in reality an ancient artifact molded into human form and the first fourteen years of your life are nothing more than fake memories, the issue tends to stay with you."

"She cut her wrists when she found out." It was more a question than a statement. The Englishman shook his head.

"I don't think it's going to happen this time. She seems cool and collected."

Buffy smirked

"She's not cool, she's cold."

"You're doing everything right. I think our sessions are helping. You must have patience."

"Yes, " she nodded. "Patience is virtue. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Wash your hands before every meal. I have to get ready for my date." She jumped off the window seal and walked out of the room. Kate was waiting downstairs to drive her home.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Key. The last thing her little sister needed is opening up that can of worms again. Little? She's a thousand times older than her. A million times even? How old is the Key anyway? As old as this world? How old is that? They still know so little about it, almost nothing. Its keepers, all dead now, hid it by making it into a person, an innocent, unknowing, unwitting accomplice in a most vile deception. In reality Dawn only came into their lives less than four years ago, but nobody noticed. How fragile memories are, how easily faked. They wanted the Slayer to protect the Key without knowing its true purpose, to protect her sister. Fourteen years, meshed, twisted around in her head. Who can tell now what was real and what they made up? Love is stronger than magic, though. You can't make it up. Her love for her sister is real. Dawn is real. Her little, non-identical twin. The chestnut hair, the bright skin. Blood beneath it. Summers blood, her blood, her DNA. Beneath that, a human soul, or some primordial energy? No, she mustn't think about that. But Dawn is. She's thinking. All the time. She could see it in her eyes. Just like when she first found out. No, different. There's still confusion, but no fear. Something else. Something that scares her. The way Dawn looks at others, both perceptively and indifferent. As though this time the tables have turned, and she is the only one who is not fake. Buffy put down her lipstick and looked closely at herself in the mirror. "Pull yourself together, " she addressed her reflection. "Whoever was behind the kidnapping is still out there. Find them, make them pay. The Immortal knows who it is. Or he knows who knows. Find out all you can. Preferably without putting out."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She came into the living room where Willow was waiting for her in the armchair, all in attention.

"Well, what do you think of the rags?"

The redhead blinked a few times trying to summon back her power of speech.

"This is the most gorgeous dress I've ever seen," she finally said.

Buffy looked down at herself a little unsure.

"It's too black"

"It's a black dress."

"It's TOO black"

Willow got off her chair and took a short trip around her friend trying to observe in close the fabric in dispute.

"What's 'too black'?"

"You know, " Buffy shrugged. "Like a funeral dress. It's too black. It's what makes a funeral dress."

"No, that's not what makes a funeral dress," said Willow rounding another circle. "It's being too long or too sleevy. The color is the same."

"That's great! I am wearing a funeral color dress!"

"Which is good. It's a like a statement, 'Try anything funny, buster, and it's going to be your funeral!'" the witch quickly retorted.

"Damn straight!" said Buffy with a momentary confidence. "Wait. That doesn't work. The Immortal is immortal, I mean invincible. I can't slay him."

"Which is good, because you don't want to get stuck with a check from a place that fancy just because you got all ragy for a moment there."

"Right. What? What are you talking about?"

"I have no idea, " the witch smiled. "I'm just following whatever turn you rant takes."

Buffy smiled right back.

"You are a true friend, Will"

"Hear, hear."

The petite blond picked up her purse of the coffee table then stopped right before opening the front door.

"Will, why am I acting like I'm going on a real date instead of an information gathering mission?"

"Because you haven't had a decent date in ages. Since Riley, if I'm not mistaken." Willow answered plunging herself right back into the comfy armchair.

"That's not true. I went out to a very nice place with Wood less than a year ago."

The redhead shook her head.

"Doesn't count. You only wanted to see if he was evil and he wanted to out you as a Slayer. At least one participant has to approach the date as an actual date for it to count as a date. Don't give me that look, that sentence made perfect sense."

"If you say so, " Buffy took the door handle for the second time. "Wish me luck."

"Go get him, tigress!" Willow shouted as her best friend walked out to the chauffeur already waiting for her on the staircase.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The limo stopped in front of a brightly lit entrance. One of the attendants opened the door, but it was the Immortal who helped Buffy out of the car. He wore a tieless buttoned up suit, the kind she has seen Indian politicians wear on TV, only black. His shirt collar was held by a golden pin matching his gold and diamond cuff lings. His face wore the usual bright ivory smile.

"I'm glad you have decided to wear the dress. The corsage should go well with it," he said handing Buffy a small box containing a tiny live white lily, surrounded by bouquet of similarly looking flowers only made out of gold, platinum, and jewels.

"Well, " she said looking on as her date carefully pinned it to her breast, "if I have to strangle two hell hounds at the entrance, it will be just like my senior prom."

"No chance of that happening, I'm afraid. But if you feel overly violent, there are live lobsters in the kitchen tank you can go medieval on."

As they were about to walk through the large gilded doors Buffy realized that she still couldn't make out the building. In fact, she just assumed there was a building because she didn't see the street or other houses further on.

"So what's the address of this place?" she asked suspiciously.

"It doesn't have one, " her companion responded. "You either know where it is, or you don't". A small entourage of hosts intercepted them as soon as they entered and led them to a table in the corner of a patio. Chairs were pulled out, napkins placed on their laps, and glasses filled with a taster of wine. The Immortal nodded approvingly and the hosts fluttered away, leaving behind a full decanter and a waiter who blended into the shadows a few meters from the table. Aside from the semi-invisible waiter, Buffy noticed that the large fire in the fireplace next to them was giving off practically no heat. It certainly was a good thing since the temperature on the patio was pleasantly warm already, too warm, even for an Italian winter. The stars overhead also seemed strangely bright and far too numerous. Perhaps it was another illusion. Perhaps they weren't in Rome anymore.

"Your earrings are beautiful."

The Slayer smiled at the obligatory compliment

"Thank you. They were my mother's."

"They really make your eyes sparkle."

"You're so sweet. What do you think of my shoes?" asked Buffy in the most bimboish tone.

The Immortal could tell his lines have bombed, but it was too late to retreat. "They are exquisite."

"I'm so glad you like them, " Buffy continued ever so sweetly, "Because if you keep talking like this one of them is going to end up your ass tonight."

"Kinky"

"Maybe both."

The Immortal chuckled as he poured the wine into their glasses.

"You will not frighten me into not complimenting you tonight."

"I wouldn't dream of it. It is just that you asked me here to share some information that you think will be useful to me, and I only wanted to return the favor."

"Duly appreciated. I think we are off to a good start," he raised his glass inviting his date to drink.

"You'd think a place like this would have a demonic clientele," she said setting down her wine.

"Oh, there are plenty of demons here. Human appearance is part of the dress code."

Buffy raised an eyebrow, "That's kind of discriminatory, don't you think? Not all demons can look human."

"Anyone who can afford to eat off this menu can afford a good glamor spell," said the Immortal taking the two leather embroidered tablets from the waiter.

"Good point. So what do I call you?" asked Buffy perusing the entries.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not calling you 'The Immortal', not if this is a date. What's your real name?" she said going over the appetizer list a second time. The letters looked Italian enough, but she couldn't make out any of the words.

"I don't have a real name. I don't think I do. Wherever I go people give me a name. None of them is any more real than the other."

"What was your very first name, then?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Why?" Buffy lowered the menu to take a careful look at his face. "Is that the source of your power or something?"

"No, it's just... It's a good name for the time, place, and the culture it was given me, but it doesn't quite fit into today's world."

"Oh, this is too good! You're so telling me!" For a minute they both stared into each other's eyes, unblinking.

"Fine," The Immortal finally spoke, "It's Abbijen. Happy?"

"Abby?" Buffy chuckled.

"Or Jen. Whichever one you find to be more emasculating."

"Alright, " said Buffy choking down the giggles. "I can be merciful. How does Mort sound? Immortal, Mort."

"It's short for Mortimer, isn't it? Might work. Still water."

"'Still what now?"

"Mortimer is French. It means still water. Unchanging. Immortal. Wow, it actually fits."

"Still waters run deep," The smile never left Buffy's face. She has forgotten how entertaining making fun of another person's name can be. To her credit, most of the previous incidents were self-defense.

"That's true, too, " The Immortal continued to be an excellent sport. "Let's go with it. Only the full version, 'Mort' sounds like a seedy villain name."

"No, it doesn't. It was the name of the sheriff on Murder, She Wrote."

"'Murder, She Wrote'?" The smile on Mortimer's face was no longer of the awkward kind as the opportunity to turn the tables presented itself.

"It's an American TV show."

"I know," the smile was now growing into a grin. "Are you actually admitting to watching it?"

"My mom watched it, " Buffy quickly backpedaled. "It's very empowering for old people."

"Sure it is. Let's stick with Mortimer."

They settled into nice rhythm. Wine, appetizers. Mortimer was talking throughout, but the more he talked the more confused Buffy felt. Taken on its surface the restaurant was perhaps the most romantic place she has ever been to. Marble and wood decorations, real candlelight chandeliers. The place seemed to have just enough people in it to seem neither crowded nor deserted. Everyone was dressed in the most gorgeous attire, some waltzing to the violin orchestra that was nowhere to be seen. Some other place she would have assumed high quality speakers to be the source, but here she felt dark magic permeate the building. The carvings on the walls – protection enchantments and sacrificial spells. The excellently dressed customers were probably blood thirsty demons, or worse, Wolfram&Hart lawyers. The atmosphere both attracted and repelled her, then it would bore and excite her at the same time. The Immortal only exacerbated this rainbow of emotions. He didn't fit any model. Sophisticated and refined one moment he would turn clownesque on a dime stopping just short of making noises with his armpit. Buffy was completely awed as to how one could make the Bennifer breakup seem so tragically romantic and 15th century heretic burnings so hilarious, and how a dozen LA traffic references fit so naturally in a story of sandal shopping with Cicero. To add to the mess of the subject matter Mortimer would work in the most elegant complements about her looks, character, and work at regular intervals. The constantly shifting, unpredictable nature of the conversation has made Buffy's head hurt and the constant barrage of jokes was tearing up her eyes from laughter, so the pause made to once more examine the menu was very welcome.

"I'm happy to offer gourmet advice, if you like," said Mortimer as the menu pause grew steadily longer.

"It would help if their descriptions were a little more detailed or, at least, there," Buffy grumbled thumbing the booklet.

"The waiter's recommendations sounded quite nice."

"Oh, no. The last time I took a demon's recommendation was at Anya's bachelorette dinner. She got me a Sekar pie. I'll never forget that dish."

"Well, it is quite a delicacy."

Buffy put down the menu looking pretty annoyed.

"True, it was good. Up to the point Anya told me the secret ingredient was Sekar urine."

"Now that's anti-demon prejudice. A kidney pie is just one step from bovine urine."

"And my puke was just one step from the Sekar pie, but nobody at the table found that particularly appetizing."

The Immortal chuckled.

"You and your friend must have had quite a chat afterward, " he said taking another big sip from his glass.

"Not really, " Buffy answered, picking up the menu again. "I had a little trouble verbalizing my feelings and Anya mostly kept repeating, 'Not in the face! I'm getting married next week!'"

If the napkin came a split second later the wine would have made it back into the glass through the nose.

"I'll bet this story will be a regular for all her wedding anniversary parties, " said Mortimer after taking a moment collecting himself.

"You loose. Xander left at her the altar and a year later she got killed by the Bringers helping us fight the First," She emptied her glass. "Happens to a lot to people around me."

"Getting left at the altar?"

"Getting killed."

"Not a concern here, " said Mortimer trying to dead end this unpleasant turn in the conversation. "Kind of immortal".

"Right. I'm not sure I'm buying this," the Slayer looked on as her date quickly refilled her glass.

"Oh, people have tried. A lot. Not lately, but at one point it was almost a sport," he joked.

"But you were just too good..."

"I'm not taking credit, it's not a talent. I t's a physical property. Or a metaphysical property. Not really sure. Regardless, nobody seems to find any way around it."

"That sounded almost like a challenge."

"You've already slain my heart, " Mortimer smiled. "If you wish my body you have only to ask."

"Okay, " said Buffy picking up the menu again. "I better order something before I completely loose my appetite."

"Third down from the top. It's a baby fawn sautéed with onions, peppers, truffles, and a few other worldly vegetables. No bodily fluids of any kind, I swear, " said Mortimer.

Buffy nodded, and immediately the menu evaporated in her hands.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The main course has also signaled a shift in Mortimer's approach. Having successfully weakened Buffy's antagonism he began zeroing in on her, with compliments becoming more frequent and more intricate. Perhaps it was the wine starting to take its toll, but his lines were starting to hit their mark a lot more often.

"How do you do that?"

"How do I do what?" asked Mortimer as the waiters cleared the empty dishes from the table.

"How do you make a girl feel superior without appearing inferior? You'd think it would be impossible, yet here we are."

The Immortal shrugged. "It's a skill, making a girl feel special. I've been honing it for centuries. Which honestly feels like a waste right now."

"Right, " smiled Buffy nodding her head. "Because I really am special."

"Precisely."

"My goodness, how big must that bed post be to fit all those notches?"

"What notches? It's all digital these days. Voice activated, in fact. A lady hits certain notes, the counter goes up."

This was one of those laugh or cry jokes and Buffy chose the former.

"I don't get it, " she said taking the napkin away from her mouth. "If you were going with the 'whatever' approach, you know, playing it cool, then maybe, but you're not. You're playing this sassy, yet obviously lovesick puppy, but when we start talking about the thousands upon thousands of your women you're not even trying to change the subject.

"Why would I? It doesn't bother you."

"How do you know it doesn't bother me?"

Mortimer leaned in across the table until his eyes were staring straight at Buffy's from just a few inches away. "Because I know, and most importantly you know, that you are far superior to any of those women."

"Oh, you're good. You're really good. You won't get to sleep with me, though."

"Of course not, " he sat back down, the smile returning to his face. "Not tonight."

Buffy laughed again unsure herself whether she was laughing with him or at him.

"The soufflé is still about fifteen minutes away. How about we get you a glass of port in the meantime?"

"More wine? You won't get me drunk you know."

"Why not? Don't slayers get drunk?"

"Not on wine."

"So what is your poison, then?" said Mortimer putting the lid back on the decanter.

"Tequila, Rum. Whatever it was that Spike was having at the time. It has to be strong and lots. Although I did have a really bad beer episode once. Truly awful. And you promised me information on Leshii," she said in a suddenly stern tone.

"I remember."

"Well? I've eaten your food, drank your wine, laughed at your feeble jokes, and largely restrained myself from laughing at your even feebler compliments. It's time you deliver."

"Ouch!" Mortimer laughed. "That was harsh. Harsh, but fair." He leaned back in his chair and began to rock ever so slightly. "See, the helicopter trick in Modica... It wasn't the first time he's done something like that. About a year ago, in Norway, he demolished an ancient monastery. Now, the official police record classifies it as a large scale vandalism as the structure was considered unoccupied. However, the locals swore that for the last six months prior to the attack it was inhabited by members of a strange cult. Dressed as monks, but with their eyes and mouths sown shut".

"Bringers?"

"If you mean Harbingers, then yes."

"I guess it makes sense, of sorts, " Buffy said pensively. "The Bringers attacked the Watchers' Council. Leshii and the Council had an agreement..."

"Leshii is an arbitrator. He doesn't do security, he is signed on to enforce treaties. I am not aware of any agreement between the Council and the First Evil. Even if there was one, it would predate him by a few thousand years, at least."

"This is all very fascinating, but it's not what I'm interested in, and not what you promised me."

"I'm getting to that," The Immortal swirled his glass of port and took a long sip before continuing. "Leshii has been busy this past year exterminating Harbingers, or Bringers, if you prefer, across Europe and Asia, and has succeeded, to an extent. The temples used to create them were destroyed, and the survivors left with that priest, Caleb, for Sunnydale to join in the fight against you. We all know how that went, and for a short while everything was quiet. Until about two months ago,"

Mortimer paused for another sip, clearly enjoying the look of impatient anticipation that has completely taken over Buffy's face. "The godfather Vizzini has always fancied himself a sorcerer. In reality he was always just a two bit poser. Then, all of a sudden, power. He's doing things way out of his league, summoning, transmogrifications..."

"The First..."

Mortimer nodded approvingly. "It's been rumored that the First has an ability to transfer some of Its innate power to a physical vessel. It's where Caleb's super strength supposedly originated. It's likely It has made a similar arrangement with Vizzini, only for magic."

"Now it makes sense. The First wanted the Scythe, It always did. What does It want with it?

"I don't know. Leshii might. He didn't attack because of Dawn, he wiped out Vizzinis for cooperating with the First."

"Right, " Buffy nodded. "One mystery down, one to go. What did the First do to piss him off so much?"

"No idea. He's never gotten involved in anything similar before. He's been known to use witchcraft to help in his racket, but never the other way around."

"Interesting. Go on.

"Actually, that's all. For tonight."

"What does that suppose to mean?"

"Come now, Buffy, what kind of a man do you think I am to go all the way on a first date?" Mortimer poured the rest of the port into his never ending smile. The unseen violins were playing Strauss.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Good afternoon, ladies. This meeting will be conducted in Italian as it seems to be the language known by most of those present. For the new arrivals who do not yet feel comfortable with their level of proficiency please take a seat next to one of your countrymen, eh, countrywomen, who is"

The main conference room was filled to the brim with almost eighty teenage girls. The chairs were removed to free up space on the floor for the slayers. The only survivor was reserved for Parreli. The large table that normally stood in the middle was pushed against full length windows that covered the entire east wall. Buffy sat herself on top of it to get a clearer view of the gathering crowd. Stefka, as always, sat in the first row. Dawn stood with Andrew in the back of the room. Judging by the apprentice watcher's hand gestures their two month old "Empire Strikes Back" vs. "The Two Towers" debate was alive and kicking. Giles stood in front of the large white board with black marker in one hand and the remote for the projector in the other. Buffy smiled noticing his suspicious glances towards the machine hanging from the ceiling. It was his first time operating a digital projector and as all things computer related he had absolutely no trust in it performing its function. The computerization of the Slayers' Council was largely driven by Willow, same as the computerization of this particular presentation, which she created and uploaded this morning. Giles looked over to Buffy and getting the nod indicating everyone is accounted for began the lecture.

"For those who may not know me, my name is Rupert Giles. I am the Chancellor of the Watchers' Academy in London and, like Buffy, I serve on the board of the Slayers' Council. I have called this meeting to address the unsubstantiated rumors swirling about this facility that the First Evil is active again. A thorough investigation has been conducted and I can say with absolute certainty that most of these rumors are true. It is our belief that the First was behind Dawn's abduction and that it is a part of a much larger and more sinister plot that has yet to completely reveal itself. This meeting is designed to simultaneously put you in a state of readiness as well as to address any fears or concerns you might have. Yes, Kate," said Giles, pointing towards a raised hand in the third row. The freckled girl quickly jumped to her feet.

"Yeah, I just wanted to ask what's the deal with this First?"

"The 'deal'?" Giles slightly furrowed his brow. Though five years as Buffy's Watcher were highly enlightening, but he still had trouble understanding the precise intricacies of modern slang.

"Right, " Kate glanced momentarily behind her as if seeking the class's support before a stern teacher. "There are a lot of things being said, sure. But none of them make very much sense. And the rest sort of contradicts itself. Basically we're all confused, and those of us who think they aren't are confused about that. There." She sat down as quickly as she has gotten up, trying not to look the Head Watcher in the eye, but Giles was smiling.

"I see, " he said. "As it happens I have a presentation prepared on this very subject. We shall start from the beginning and make sure to cover all the major elements." He viciously pressed the play button on the remote, and when to his surprise and relief the first picture appeared, he cleared his throat and began in that even lecture voice that Buffy has known so well for so long. "The First Evil is an ancient, villainous entity. So ancient, in fact, It is thought to have existed before this world was created. It is non-corporeal and cannot physically affect our reality. It does, however, command a large number of very much corporeal minions called Harbingers, which everyone seems to have taken to call Bringers, despite the obvious difference in the meaning."

"Really? What does 'Harbinger' mean?" Kate called out from the crowd.

"That's why we've settled on 'Bringers'," Buffy responded with a smile.

"Moving on, " said Giles going to the next slide. "The Bringers are human-like in appearance and strength, but have a common consciousness. They most likely communicate telepathically as their eyes and mouths are scarred over. They sense their enemy by smell and are very quick. The First is also known to use higher level creatures such as a variety of vampire demons. In addition, we speculate that under certain conditions the First can transfer some of Its power into a human. This hypothesis is mostly based on a priest, named Caleb, who led the Bringer campaign against the Slayer in Sunnydale. He possessed incredible strength and certain magical abilities whose source we were unable to determine. Of course, dealing with monsters, however strong, is nothing new in the history of this organization. What makes the First particularly dangerous and feared is the knowledge It posses. It automatically absorbs and retains the memories of any dead person, human or demon. This means It has access to the collective knowledge of billions of individuals. It also turns the whole concept of taking your secrets to your grave on its head. Die and the First learns all you know. The only way to keep information from the enemy is to stay alive. So I expect you to try your hardest." A few lighthearted comments strategically placed were there to make sure the girl's minds were filled with facts, not dread. Taking note of smiles in the audience, the Watcher continued. "Although It is non-corporeal, the First can communicate with this world's inhabitants by appearing as an auditory or visual hallucination. The range of forms it is able to take, however, is limited to the dead. Even so, it can be quite a devastating psychological weapon against those not prepared to deal with it..."

"Currently dead or ever dead?" someone called out.

"How's that?" asked Giles peering into the audience.

"Buffy, " Samira shouted out from the fourth row. "She was dead, but she's not anymore."

"Oh, It can do me," the Slayer interjected. "I mean, be me," she quickly corrected herself.

"That's correct. Which brings us to a very important point, " Giles picked up the thread. "If you notice someone, Buffy, or anyone else, not behaving the way they should, you must consider the possibility of them being the First, and apply the tactility test."

"You poke them, " Buffy stepped in again, noticing the blank stares of her students. "If you finger goes through you have a problem."

"The First might also pretend to be the ghost of someone you know for certain to be deceased," Giles continued. "Since It has all of their memories, It will try to use them to fool you, threaten you, or guilt you into doing something you would not otherwise do. You need to be very careful to…"

"So how do you tell them apart?" he was interrupted by a pudgy Ukrainian girl in second row.

"Tell who apart?"

"The First from a real ghost? You can't do the poking thing, and they know the same stuff."

"I'm not sure, " the Watcher stammered. "Do you have a lot of ghosts visiting you..?"

"Dasha. None, so far, but I don't want them to feel unwelcome."

Rarefied chuckles began popping through the room. Giles glanced over to his former student. Buffy was looking back at him with that same warm and playful half-smile he has missed so much. Like a tiny summer cloud it passed over her face and disappeared, a shadow of what was. It's a different girl making light of his expose now, it will never again be her.

"Well, it's certainly something to look into, " he answered with an obligatory smile. The lecture and questions continued. Little by little Buffy's last year in Sunnydale was laid out before the new slayers. Most of them knew bits and pieces, but many were hearing the whole story for the first time. They were told how the Bringers hunted down and killed Potential Slayers. How Caleb blew up the Watchers' Council. How surviving Potentials fled to Buffy's protection in California. How the First brought forth an ancient vampire race to fight Buffy alongside Caleb and his Bringers. How Buffy tracked down and retrieved the Slayer Scythe and used it to kill Caleb. How Willow used the Scythe to transform the Potentials and how the newly minted slayer army faced down the vampire horde in the Hellmouth itself, holding them off until the Soullight Amulet's power was released, incinerating the enemy, the town above them, and the hell's entrance below them. Buffy noted how Giles went out of his way to leave Spike and Angel unmentioned. He had a great disdain for both of her former lovers and even Spike's immolation by the very Amulet he was wearing didn't buy him much favor. Angel fared even worse having obtained the Amulet as part of the deal with Wolfram&Hart to head the evil law firm's Los Angeles division. The last she heard of him, he and Giles had a bitter confrontation over the fate of a mentally ill slayer that escaped from an LA hospital. Angel working for Wolfram&Hart. Seems like everyone has to make a deal with the proverbial Devil these days. She has already done it twice in the last two weeks. Then again there's at least an 80% chance Mortimer isn't evil... The information session has wrapped up and the slayers were shuffling out of the conference room. Dawn seemed intent on once again planting herself in the library for the rest of the day and that meant another free night for the elder Summers.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Seven o'clock in the evening was fast approaching. Stefka quickly swallowed the last bite of her supper and ran to the fourth floor lounge which was slowly filling up with the other young slayers. She gave the room a quick glance over, taking notice of the absentees and headed over to the center couch where Sheelah was methodically assailing the apple and pear basket.

"Did you guys invite Dawn? What did she say?" Stefka asked.

The wiry brunette's response was a blank stare.

"She said she's busy," Samira piped in from the couch on the other side of the coffee table. "And if you don't know Hebrew, at least talk to Sheelah in English, she's only been here three weeks."

"That's exactly why she needs to practice her Italian," Stefka responded.

"Well, aren't you the life of the party," Alice joined the conversation, "By the way, we gave away Dawn's spot in the car to Andrew. We would have offered it to you first, but we couldn't find you".

"Right," answered Stefka still not taking her eyes off Sheelah nibbling at the fruit. The latter was beginning to have trouble swallowing.

"Apple?" she offered, half pleadingly.

"She doesn't eat apples, " said Alice taking it from her hand. "She just stares at them like a big weirdo."

"Is that the Original Sin thing?" asked Samira of no one in particular. Alice took a giant bite of the apple and proceeded to chew it loudly just a few inches from Stefka's face.

"I'm a fallen woman! Today it's an apple, tomorrow I'll sleep with a guy out of wedlock, and who knows what will happen the day after tomorrow!"

"I do," Stefka answered calmly. "You'll still be an idiot."

The room giggled while Alice, as red as the fruit she was holding, tried in vain to come up with quick and appropriate response.

"I'm going to try to talk Dawn into coming and we'll meet you at the club around ten. I figure three hours should give you just enough time to think of a comeback". The blond slayer headed out the door.

"Naughty, naughty Stefka," Alice finally responded. "What happened to turning the other cheek?"

"I just did," she said without turning around. "And you can kiss both of them."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As she expected, Stefka found Dawn in the club's library. The book pile on her table has been roughly equal parts Russian textbooks and demon references. To the side lay her blue gloves with digit prosthetics.

"Zdorovo, sestritza," Dawn spoke, her head still in the book.

"What?" said Stefka startled.

"You don't know what it means?"

"Not a clue, " the slayer responded somewhat abruptly.

"Huh. I thought Russian and Bulgarian were close. Not that close, I guess. Just saying 'hello'," said Dawn still not lifting head.

"The girls are going dancing," said Stefka setting herself next to the girl.

"I know, " she answered, thumbing through the pages. "Samira told me."

"I know, she told me you said you were busy." With that Stefka grabbed the thick volume from Dawn's hands. "'Subterranean Tentacled Demons'?"

"I thought I'd help Oksana and Dasha with their assignment," said Dawn taking back the book.

"We've got two watchers here now. Two and a half if you count Andrew. I think they can handle a dog-eating demon."

"It's been known to attack people."

"So have I when given lousy excuses."

Dawn smiled, setting the book down on the table. They were both outsiders when they met, though in different ways. The others did not shun her as they did the overachieving blonde slayer, quite the opposite. Samira, who became the queen bee of the social circle practically upon arrival, went out of her way to make sure Dawn was treated well. Even the most exclusive gatherings had a spot reserved for the girl who was the treasure trove of Buffy related gossip and free homework help. Yet, in a way, this felt worse than being forgotten. Constantly surrounded by these girls with superpowers Dawn couldn't shake the feeling she was one of those 'special' kids in High School that everyone was extra nice to in person, but made fun of behind their back. It was only natural that she gravitated to someone else who couldn't quite fit in no matter what she tried. Stefka was as clumsy socially as Dawn was physically and their relationship felt comfortable in its balance.

"I'm fine. Thanks. Really. I'm good; I don't need you to do this for me."

"Fair enough. Then do this for me, " said Stefka lifting Dawn out of the chair. "I want to go and you're pretty much the only person here who likes me."

"That's not true."

"It is so. They had one empty spot in the car and they chose Andrew. Andrew, Dawn. The guy whose 'five people you meet in Heaven' are all Star Trek captains!"

"Andrew is cool, in that special overly geeky way, and he doesn't beat them up, " Dawn chuckled as she got back into her seat.

"It's called sparring, and they are better for it."

"See, that's what I'm talking about. You're like their teacher, which automatically makes you uncool. Plus you're about the same age they are which tends to cause jealousy and resentment."

"I thought it was supposed to be admiration."

"Not with our age group, not if they know you personally. You know, the 'familiarity breeds contempt' thing. For some reason it's a lot easier to accept superiority of people you never met. I'm pretty sure the slayers in other divisions think you're the bomb, but here you need to work for friends. Which includes spending time with someone other than me, talking of things other than school, and gushing over guys other than Jesus."

"What's wrong with Jesus?" Stefka's tone turned serious on a dime.

"Nothing's wrong with Jesus. Jesus is perfect in every way. Everybody already knows it. So no point in talking about it, right?"

Stefka shook her head smiling.

"You're amazing, you know that? You're making fun of me, but I like you even more. I'd give anything to be able to read people the way you do."

Dawn simply shrugged and leaved through the bestiary trying to find her place.

"Can I ask you something?" Stefka pulled a chair next to Dawn's. "What did you think of Leshii?

"Leshii? Why?"

"Well, we fight evil, right? The slayers, I mean. But the demon evil, not the human kind. Because we are not qualified to judge. That's what the Bible says, that's what Buffy says. So I don't want to judge anybody, not even Leshii. I really, really don't want to judge him, but I have seen what he has done. At Modica, and at the house..." Stefka paused, nervously playing with her crucifix pendant. She seemed to be having a great deal of trouble picking the right words. "But it's not just about what we do, it's what's on the inside, it's why we do it. Not that there's ever an excuse for sin, it just the 'why', it's what makes redemption possible don't you think? Do you think Leshii has that in him?"

If Dawn wasn't concentrating so hard on faking her disinterest in the subject she might have paid more attention to the strangeness of her friend's demeanor. "I don't know; we didn't really interact. Why are you so interested in Leshii?"

"I'm not. I'm just, you know, an obsessed Christian girl. Redemption is big among our people," Stefka quickly got up, clearly not happy she started on the subject to begin with. "Forget I asked. I'll keep my hobbies to myself from now on. Now how about that dance club?"

"You go. Have fun. Make lots of new friends, good friends, but not as good as me, " she smiled giving the slayer a short goodbye wave.

Stefka has left the library over twenty minutes ago, but Dawn kept staring at the doorway. Redemption comes from guilt. Guilt comes from doubt. There was no doubt. Every word he uttered, every gesture he made was more than confident, it was efficient. She glanced over the pile of books before her. This is not efficient. She angrily swept everything from the table, then sat back down in her chair, suddenly feeling exhausted. It's not his fault. In his own way he was probably just trying to help her. "..In my experience, Miss Summers, lack of closure in these cases will leave you either a weeping mess on a psychiatrist's couch or make you a homicidal sociopath..." No danger of that now. Dawn picked up the "Conversational Russian" from the floor and flipped to the seventh chapter.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

One look inside her apartment was enough for Buffy to realize she should have dragged Willow to Giles' lecture.

"What did you do to my living room?!" she exclaimed from the doorway.

"Don't touch anything!" the witch shouted back from the kitchen. She came in with a potted plant and put it next to the front door as perplexed Buffy looked on. "The energies in this room are now perfectly aligned for the spell origin tracking. Everything is in its proper place."

"There's a chair on my coffee table."

"It's where it belongs."

"On the coffee table?"

"It wasn't my call."

"What, the chair told you to do it?"

"No, silly, the coffee table. Tables are the fussiest furniture, always want to be the center of attention," The witch was smiling playfully, but whether she was actually joking was very much a tossup.

"Why can't you do your voodoo at the clubhouse?"

"Because that freaky Ukrainian girl got into my spell base mixture bottle again. Why can't she go out and buy a six-pack like a normal person? She does know that the drinking age is sixteen here, right?"

"She says your stuff tastes just like her stepdad makes"

"It's 140 proof! Does she have younger siblings? We should call child services on that guy. Do they even have child services there?"

"If you are planning on calling anybody, call Kennedy, " said Buffy scanning the room for a safe place to sit down. For some reason the couch was turned around and pushed all the way into the wall, while the comfy armchair was taken by a big pot of water. "She called me again this afternoon asking why you aren't calling her back. That's twice today."

"Oh, fudgesicles. She's probably really miffed, " replied Willow making a slight adjustment to the fichus at the door. Buffy couldn't help smiling. Willow has come a long way from that socially awkward computer geek she shepherded through High School, but her swearing skills still left much to be desired.

"Certainly sounded like it. A little spoiled that girl is to demand an immediate callback like that without a justifiable emergency."

"Well, three days isn't that immediate," mumbled the redhead.

"You haven't returned her calls for three days? Oh, Willow!"

The witch placed a small colorful mat in the middle of the room and sat on it lotus style.

"I've been busy, " she said laying out various magical implements around her, "You know, the First, evil afoot, and all that. I'll make it up to her. Conjure up a necklace or something when I get back."

"A necklace?"

"A ruby necklace. She likes rubies."

"Jewelry? Will, you're gay, not guy. A girl needs attention. I don't need to tell you that. Especially that girl. Is this how it's been going?"

"It's been a little rough the last few months, but I'm making plans for more 'us' time with Kennedy. It's on the list, " Willow replied a little irritated, very much in a hurry to close the subject matter.

"Number sixteen or seventeen?"

"Hey!" the girl jumped back to her feet to put herself eye level with her detractor. "I actually run my slayer school, unlike some people! I also have ranking membership in the Coven Covenant and on the board of your Council. The latter results in bit more responsibility since a certain Chairman, whose initials conveniently enough are B.S, that's right, since its B.S. Chairman is usually AWOL drinking coffee someplace that's not her office!"

"You are not seriously blaming me?" said Buffy clearly not buying into the 'angry Willow' act.

"No, not seriously, " the latter replied sitting back down. "I suppose I have problems delegating and prioritizing. But it wouldn't kill you to help me a little. At least by not making me feel bad on such a nice cloudless evening. You know, it's summer right now in Rio. Rain for four days straight doesn't happen there. And now you're spoiling my first happy starlight time in almost a week with this whole Kennedy thing."

"I'm sorry, I'll shut up."

"No, no. Don't shut up. No shutting up. Just talk of something else."

"I didn't realize you were so overwhelmed. The last time I visited, I don't know, you just made it look easy. But it's really not, is it?" said Buffy joining her friend on the mat.

"Teaching part, the classes, that's easy. There's work, sure, but it's fun. The administrative part is not fun. The finances are the worst. I hate that stuff."

Buffy chuckled lightly.

"Wasn't there something funny Anya once told you on the subject?"

"You mean the one about me being an utter embarrassment to my people?" Willow answered grimly. "That if I were born two thousand years earlier I would endanger the very survival of the Jewish race by weakening the genetic trait that allowed them to succeed in banking and trade, the only vocations allowed to them? Yes, it was hilarious."

"She certainly had a knack for inappropriate, God rest her soul, " Buffy chuckled on.

"Satan's more like it. She was rude, self-absorbed, and obsessed with money. I can't believe Xander almost married her."

"Huh, " said Buffy watching Willow somewhat angrily mashing salamander eyes into the mixture bowl. "The creepiest thing has just occurred to me. Do you realize that every girl he has ever gone out with is now dead?"

"Perhaps he should be more like you and start dating people after they die."

"Okay, this is got to stop. It's comments like this that are giving me a reputation. As a matter of record I have gone out with more humans than vampires."

"Maybe, but long term relationships are two to one in favor of the undead."

Willow poured out the entire flask of orange liquid, then plopped it into the bowl as well where it promptly dissolved in the brew. Two metal balls followed suffering the same fate.

"It's even. The Spike thing doesn't count. It was all physical; we barely said a word to each other."

"I bet. Hard to talk with your mouth full."

"Hey!" Buffy indignation at the last remark was somewhat enhanced by the rising concern for the safety of her hardwood floor.

"You started it. First you ragged on my relationship, then on Xander's. And as a matter of fact you were wrong on that count, I'm alive and kicking."

"Preschool romance doesn't count."

"It does too! We had four beautiful months together until he turned out to be a serial Barbie stealer, " Willow looked up from the her bowl and as their eyes met both girls burst into laughter.

"Oh, you!" Buffy gave her friend a one-fingered shove that was still strong enough to knock the witch on her back.

"My mixture's ready, so you either need to leave the room for the next two hours or go stand next to that floor lamp until I'm finished, " said Willow straining to get back into a sitting position without untwisting her legs.

"Fine, " said Buffy helping her up. "I'll go align myself with the energies of loud German techno. Please put everything back before I return. Except for the plant, it actually looks better here."

Buffy decided to forgo the taxi and walk the one and a half miles to the club. Her shoes weren't terribly comfortable, but she always did her best thinking on her feet and there was a lot to think about. She needed to give Dawn her answer about Moscow. The longer she delays the harder it would be to refuse her. Refuse Dawn the only thing she's been talking about the last two days? It would be easier to cancel the whole thing altogether, but that's impossible. They must know more about Leshii. If he's working against the First, why the charade with arbitration? Did that bastard really use Dawn as bait for Vizzinis? He must have his own agenda in all this and the sooner they learn what it is the better. The Moscow trip has to happen, but does she have to let Dawn be part of it? If only Mortimer wasn't all tapped out. Speak of the devil... The Immortal stood slouching against the wall of the club smiling politely, but disinterestedly at the group of four pretty young females trying in vain to chat him up. As Buffy approached Mortimer moved quickly to intercept her leaving his high heeled posse in the dust.

"You better have some information for me, " she said sternly.

"Does it always have to be about business when we meet?"

"Yes"

"Now you're just being mean for the sake of being mean. It's not like I tricked you into coming here. And what exactly will I be spoiling if I come inside with you? Every time it's just a bunch of jerks trying to pick you up with corny lines. I'm sure I can improve on that."

"Let me guess, you are offering to be there to chase them away?"

"Actually I was going for a jerk with less corny lines, but your plan sounds better."

Buffy expressively rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth were smiling. Mortimer noticed it too and stepped aside clearing the path to the door.

"If you say I can't go in, then I won't go in, " he said humbly.

"Do what you want, it's a free country, " Buffy responded dispassionately, then paused. "It is a free country, isn't it?

"Yes, Italy is one of the free countries."

"Alright then, but don't expect me to talk to you or anything," she said walking in.

"To bask in your presence is all I ask," Mortimer smiled taking her jacket.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Stop scratching your bandages," Zemfira grabbed Dawn's left hand and forcefully put in on the seat next to her.

"She's not scratching," Leshii spoke from the recess of the limo. "She's trying to rub it clean."

"There's blood on it," said Dawn almost to herself.

"It's your blood," answered Leshii, "You're only drawing more."

"I knew I should have gotten those blue gloves," mumbled Zemfira as she adjusted the bandages. "Red and white just doesn't go with the dress."

The car cabin was large and dark. The driver screen was closed and the city lights barely shown through the tinted windows. Dawn sat silent and still as the little vampire fussed over her. They said they were taking her home, but there was no way for her to tell if it was true. Surprisingly it didn't bother her in the least, though she wasn't sure if it was because she trusted them or just didn't care.

"You have nothing to feel sorry about," Leshii spoke again. "You acted appropriately given the situation."

"Appropriately? That wasn't justice."

"There is no justice. There's Final Judgment, if you believe in that sort of thing. But even that is nothing more than the ultimate demonstration of God's power. Which is what it's all about. The power to take from others what you want. They took what they wanted, did they not?"

"I thought I was better than that."

"Better than what?"

"Better than they"

"You are. You are alive and they are dead."

"You know, it customary to wipe your hands after you handle the food, not before," said Buffy snapping Dawn back to reality. She put down the crumpled napkin and stood up from the dining table.

"I'm not hungry"

"You should eat. You have barely eaten anything in the last three weeks."

"I didn't loose any weight, " the girl mumbled.

"You're trying to loose weight? You don't need to loose any weight! If anything you can stand to gain a few pounds. I don't know where you got the idea..."

"I'm not anorexic, " Dawn quickly interrupted her sister's rant. "I'm just pointing out that I haven't lost any weight. Wouldn't that mean I eat enough? It's simple math. So I'm not hungry now. It's Alice's birthday tonight, I'll have some cake later."

"Do you want a piece right now? Cake for lunch, how cool is that?"

"Don't be desperate, Buffy. It doesn't look good on you." She was almost out the room when Buffy stood up herself.

"Dawn, do you love me?"

She stopped in the doorway.

"Of course," she answered with her back still turned.

"Then have a drumstick."

Without saying a word Dawn came back to her plate, took two bites of the chicken leg and walked out again.

"Expressing your love through food. You've really absorbed the local culture, " said the witch spreading humus on her cracker.

"I'm not laughing, Willow."

"I can see that," the redhead sighed heavily. "She thinks Dawn has identity issues," she mumbled seemingly to herself, but loud enough for Buffy to hear,"Let her try going through life as an unfunny Jew. Kazam! I do believe that was a smile."

Buffy indeed was smiling. Of the old Sunnydale gang Xander was the fastest one with the jokes, but since "Bwana Harris" was stuck babysitting his slayers in Zambezi she really appreciated Willow stepping up. Her only alternative would be to watch Andrew reenact scenes from "The Meaning of Life". They sat silently for a minute as the witch thoughtfully chewed her cracker.

"So you are set on this."

"Yep, " Buffy nodded.

"Are you sure it's a good idea?"

"Nope. But I don't have any others."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The door to Dawn's bedroom was to the left of the full length mirror which allowed Buffy to remain unseen for over five minutes as she watched, smiling, her sister turning back and forth in front of her reflection with a giant furry hat on her head.

"How do you say, 'you look ridiculous' in Russian?" she finally made herself known.

Dawn quickly took off her head gear and stuffed it back into the suitcase with a slightly embarrassed smile. She sat down on the bed next to it assuming the usual pose, slouching shoulders, eyes on the floor.

"Is that for me?" she asked apparently in reference to the thick folder her sister was holding.

"Yep, " Buffy sat down next to Dawn and put the papers on her lap. "Kasek already has a copy, but I thought you might like your own to read on the plane. Leshii himself might be elusive, but his lieutenants are pretty well documented. The contact you'll meet in Moscow should be able to get you started, but her record has been, shall we say, spotty. If she doesn't come through you could use these."

Dawn flipped open the first couple of pages.

"Vladimir Bronin, aka Yozh, " she read out loud. "It means hedgehog."

"Sounds cuddly. Yikes!" Buffy exclaimed as Dawn turned to the page with a picture. "Well, they certainly got the hog part right."

Dawn looked up awkwardly at her sister, their nascent smiles meeting, growing into a light laughter. Buffy wasn't laughing at her own joke. Feeling her sister's eyes on her again, seeing the wide smile on her face, for a brief second it seemed as nothing has happened. The last weeks simply dissolved in the moment. Out in the street the cab was honking. Dawn jumped off the couch and grabbed her suitcases.

"I got it, " Buffy said taking them from her. Free from her luggage Dawn practically ran out of the apartment. It's only a research mission. Sure, it is still a mission and safety is a concern, but for the first time in three weeks Dawn had life in her eyes. "It's worth it," Buffy tried to assure herself as she carried the bags downstairs, "It's all going to be fine."


	3. Chapter 3: Leshii

**Chapter 3: Leshii**

The taxi turned towards the sprawling apartment complex just to the side of the main road.

"Which entrance?" asked the driver.

"What?" Kasek responded, somewhat confused.

"Which entrance?" repeated the cabbie.

"The main one."

The driver hit the brakes and turned around. "Are you fucking with me, buddy?"

"We need building twelve, section three. What's the problem?" Dawn interceded.

The cabbie shook his head and put the clutch back in drive. They drove another two hundred feet before the car stopped again.

"Building twelve, section three." he pointed to his left. "That'll be two hundred and sixty four rubles." Kasek took out a twenty and a five dollar bills and handed them over.

"Keep the change," he said following Dawn out of the cab.

"Oh, crap!" he heard her say. The building in front of them was a nine story monstrosity at least eight hundred feet in length with twelve different entrances.

"Well," Kasek spoke after a minute. "At least we know we need the first floor."

Ten minutes later they were on the street again.

"So they number their apartments sequentially, how original of them," Dawn gave the building another look over. "Four apartments per floor, thirty six per entrance."

"Those two sections look eight story," said Kasek pointing to another part of the building. "That would make number one seventy six somewhere between the ninth floor of entrance five and second floor of entrance six."

"I vote six. The less time we spend in these stairwells the better. What was that smell?" Dawn shuddered.

"The usual, vomit mixed with urine," Kasek answered as they walked over to the next entrance. Dawn cringed again.

"It was supposed to be a rhetorical question."

"You always lived in a good part of the city, didn't you?" This, too, was a rhetorical question. Dawn brushed it off just like a dozen of his other offhand contemptuous remarks throughout the trip. It was clear he didn't want her along. He didn't put up much of a fight with Buffy when she gave him his orders, but Dawn heard him arguing with Giles on the phone. Judging from the language Kasek chose to communicate in it was clearly about her, so she listened in from behind the door, hoping whatever Latin she picked up helping Willow with her spells would finally come in handy. Surprisingly she found herself understanding a great deal of the conversation.

"Faith!" Dawn exclaimed. The sultry five foot four brunette was dressed of all things in dirty blue sweats, leg warmers, and a furry red sweater.

"Are you surprised at me or my outfit?" she asked letting in her guests.

"Buffy didn't say anything about our contact. I didn't even know you were in Russia."

"Sort of comes with being on the Interpol most wanted list. You tend not to spread around your whereabouts. The central heating comes and goes, so keep your coats on and take a seat," she closed the door and went to the kitchen. Dawn looked around the apartment. It was a small one room place with yellowish wallpaper and linoleum floor. There was a couch on the east wall, and a small dining table over by the window. A small corridor split into a tiny enclosed kitchen on one side and a bathroom on the other.

"How long have you been here?" asked Dawn.

"About four months," Faith emerged from the kitchen with a pickle jar, three crystal glasses, and a bottle of vodka. "I don't have much in the way of food, so this will have to do." she said setting her wares down on the table.

"Nice glasses," commented Dawn pulling up a chair across from Kasek who still hasn't said a word.

"They have to be," Faith poured the vodka, filling each glass exactly to the middle. "You can tell your guests to sit on the floor and piss in the sink, but offer a Russian vodka in a paper cup and you'll get your skull bashed in with your own bottle."

"So why Moscow?"

"Where else can you get First World living and Third World corruption?" Faith fished out a couple pickles from the jar and handed them to Dawn and Kasek.

"This doesn't look like First World living to me," the girl mumbled staring suspiciously at the swamp green cylinder in her hand.

"My last two residencies in the West were a jail cell and the Summers' house with eight Potentials to a bathroom. I say this is an improvement," she raised her glass. "To meetings, let them all be this pleasant." Seeing Faith down the entire contents of her glass, Dawn took a big gulp from hers, and nearly dropped it. She quickly stuffed the pickle into her mouth, but that didn't do much to stop the burning.

"One more, please," she asked hoarsely.

"What am I, a pickle factory? You only get one per glass," Faith said with a fake sternness. "Here, newbie," she handed Dawn hers, still untouched. "Don't get used to it."

"Can we get on with it?" Kasek spoke at last, setting down his glass just as full as he picked it up.

"Sure," said Faith, "Enough with the pleasantries." She took out a cigarette pack from her pocket and lit one up. "Leshii. Quite a character. That stunt he pulled in Italy, that's his MO: leave no survivors to take revenge. He's been doing this for years, only on a smaller scale."

"I would think the impunity is greater here," said Kasek.

"Oh it's not an impunity issue. He's got impunity up the wazoo. It's just that during all those turf wars in the nineties he didn't have the resources for something this big. And now, he has no need. Everybody's got the message."

"In Italy those burnt up child corpses have practically caused a riot. The whole country was up in arms combing the streets for Leshii. You can only push fear so far before it turns to outrage," said Dawn, her voice slowly coming back.

"True. Except here the general public doesn't know about Leshii. The police cover it up. Blames it on house fires, car accidents, or an occasional maniac, who conveniently dies in a shoot out. The last thing the government wants is a single issue the masses can rally around. In this country it never turns out well for people in charge. Besides, they like Leshii. In the last five years the number of hits in Moscow fell by eighty percent, gang wars have virtually disappeared. He's largely responsible for this semblance of law and order and in this place the order is considered much more valuable and a few dozen families."

"My father died on the streets of Prague in sixty eight. I'm very well aware of how much these people value human lives," said Kasek overturning the vodka glass into his mouth. "What I'm more interested in is why this particular Russian murderer would get it in his head to take on the First Evil. You are supposed to get us in touch with people, who might know this, aren't you?"

Faith nodded.

"Not an easy task. Leshii is the Keyser Soze of the Russian underworld. Everybody knows about him, but nobody has seen him. He doesn't go to club, or restaurants, or casinos. He doesn't throw parties, or hire call girls. Most of the people he talks to are the ones he's about to execute, and the ones that get to live don't like to blab. Still, one way or the other stories sip in, mostly from current or past members of his gang. If you get them really, really drunk. Some fact, some fiction, and with Leshii it's almost impossible to tell which one's which. Lucky for us, someone has already done the legwork"

"FSB?" asked Kasek.

Faith just smirked.

"Officially Leshii doesn't have an FSB file, although the word is that there are at least five of them. Each getting thicker as you go up the security clearance ladder. No, our file is much more accessible and probably more thorough, too. It's owned by a first year journalism student, Dima Novikov."

"And he is willing to share it with us?"

"He spent two years and untold sums of money to find everything there is to find about a man who killed his father. That file is the most precious thing he has. But he'll share it with me," she gave her glass a little twirl, then filled it half way with vodka again.

"Why you?" asked Dawn looking tentatively at her drink, mentally preparing for another gulp.

"Isn't it obvious?" the slayer licked her lisp, "He's got a major crush on me. I'm pretty sure we can work something out. What?" she looked at the watcher with a little twisted smile, "Am I offending your sensibilities, teach'?"

"Well, I guess it's better than stubbing him in the gut. When do we meet this fellow?" asked Kasek. The smile has disappeared from Faith's face. She took out the cigarette and stared at the Czech for a moment.

"Tonight. Black Sea restaurant. Eleven thirty. I'll meet you out front."

"Fine," the watcher stood up and headed for the door, "Dawn?"

The girl remained seated.

"I'm coming with Faith," she said without turning around.

"You are not safe in this neighborhood," said Kasek, "You should return to the hotel."

"I'm a lot safer with Faith here, than alone at the hotel," she answered, "Unless you think she is going to gut me. Which would mean you don't trust Buffy's judgment. In which case you should call her and voice your concerns," she took out her cell phone. "Do you remember the number, or shall I dial it for you?" Without a word Kasek walked out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

"I'm a little torn", Faith spoke up when he left, "You stood up for me, which is pretty cool. But you did so by threatening to tell on the guy to his boss, which is totally not cool."

"He was being an ass the entire time he was here. He deserves what he gets. Are you okay?" Dawn extended her glass towards the slayer. She tapped Dawn's glass with her own and they both drank.

"There's a lesson here for you, kid. Don't murder anyone unless you're willing to bear some resentment from you peers," Faith joked without a smile.

"They don't mind your past as much here, huh?" said Dawn.

"They get Interpol posters just like anyone else, but here all you have to do is slip a twenty or a fifty to the arresting officer, depending on his rank, and you can go on your merry way," Faith lit another cigarette and continued. "My Russian being of even worse quality than my fake papers I tend to get stopped a lot. Bribes were ninety percent of my expenses the first month here. Now I have a good cover, so it's much easier."

"You got a new identity?"

"No, 'cover' is your protection," she explained, "usually a high ranking political official or a well known criminal. Sometimes the guy is both. My cover is Anatoli Shevchuk, the owner of the Pink Diamond club where I work security. He does a number of smuggling operations on the side. A rather well connected individual."

"You are a bouncer?" Dawn could barely contain her laughter.

"Not exactly. The big guys at the entrance are for show, to keep the rowdy college students away. The real security is inside, in plain clothes, mixing with the guests, ready to put the lid on any trouble before it starts. Usually it's former KGB or FSB officers. They tend to be very average looking, unlike the ex-special forces that are on the outside, but almost as handy with the martial arts."

"Not nearly as handy as you are," interjected Dawn.

"True, but that's not the reason I'm so valued. The male patrons are admitted based on the number of millions in their bank accounts. So not exactly heavy on the good looks crowd. It's easy to find guards that blend in. For women it's different. Female guards are pretty rare to begin with, but to get one for a place like Pink is almost impossible. All the girls there are gorgeous eighteen to twenty five year old skanks looking for the latest sugar daddy to suck the diamonds out of, pardon the pun. So I fit right in. Barely, though. Those are pretty skanky skanks. "

They continued talking for hours. Eventually the conversation drifted to their common acquaintances and Dawn filled Faith in on the latest news from Xander, Willow, and Giles. What happened to her she kept secret, only mentioning that Buffy had trouble with an Italian mob and Leshii intervened.

"What about Wood?" Faith shouted from the bathroom, applying the last touches of makeup.

"Principal Wood?" Dawn responded. "He is in Cleveland, in charge of the local Slayer school. There's talk of promoting him to head the entire North American division. Giles wanted Willow there, but she's in love with Rio, doesn't want to move back. I don't think he is seeing anybody."

"I didn't ask." Faith came back into the living room. "How do I look?"

"Five by five," Dawn smiled.

"Seriously. This is business, remember?" Faith put her hand on her hip and tossed her hair. "Do I look irresistible?"

"I'm fighting the urge to jump you right now," Dawn smiled even wider.

"Sheesh," said Faith mockingly, grabbing her overcoat out of the closet. "You spend three years in prison and then get all stereotyped!" The girls ran laughing out of the apartment to the cab waiting at the entrance number six.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The bustling restaurant was full of suit wearing middle aged men and scantily clad young women. It was a little past midnight and the classiness of the place was now limited to the impeccably dressed waiters and busboys busy picking up broken caviar plates and wiping the shirts and dresses of their increasingly drunk patrons. In the middle of all this fun a young man sat alone at the table with four chairs. He was barely nineteen and had on an expensive suit and real gold rimmed glasses. From his manner it was easy to tell that he was desperately trying to fit in which made him stick out even more. As they approached the table he signaled the waiters. The chairs were immediately pulled out, napkins put on their laps, and wine and vodka glasses promptly filled.

"Dmitri," he said extending his hand towards Dawn.

"Dawn," she replied with a handshake.

"A pleasure," Dmitri said in English with a barely audible accent.

"This is Kasek," Faith said pointing to the watcher. They shook hands as well.

"So you are Faith's friends from America?" the young man asked with a polite smile.

Dawn looked at the slayer surprised. She just smirked.

"We came to see this guy because he's able to dig up dirt on Leshii, you didn't think he'd have trouble finding it on me?"

"And how long have you had this fascination with murderers, Dmitri?" Kasek asked dryly.

"Excuse me?" he answered in a rising voice, clearly angered.

"It's a joke," Faith said quickly. "He was just kidding. We like to tease each other, 'cause we are such good friends. Thank you, though," she smiled and the young man immediately melted.

"I'm sorry; I guess I'm a little irritable today."

"No problem," said Kasek. "Taking on a man like Leshii would be stressful for anybody."

"Taking on?" Dmitri sounded a little confused. "I have no problem with Leshii. Well, I do, of course, from a strictly humanistic standpoint, but it's really not something I get involved with."

It was Dawn's turn now to be confused.

"Didn't he murder your father?" she asked.

Dmitri smiled.

"Oh, I see. No, as a matter of fact he didn't. He killed my father, yes. But he did not murder him." Satisfied that he now had Faith's friends completely mystified, he began his story. "The illness of the mind knows no borders or socio-economic boundaries. Pedophiles, serial killers, and other kinds of sociopaths and psychopaths are plentiful everywhere. But in the Soviet Union, the land of happy-peppy people such terrible things could not possibly exist. And so they didn't. Not on TV or radio news, not in any newspaper or magazine. They existed only in restricted archives, the minds of the privileged detectives, and the guards and doctors at the asylums that housed these monsters. There were many asylums then, most of them served as prisons for Soviet dissidents, for willful rejection of communist values was a sure sign of mental disorder," Dmitri smirked and emptied his shot glass. "But a few were dedicated to the truly violent. My father worked in one of those 'hospitals'. For a long time the treatment of the inmates was limited to surgery, shock therapy, and as science evolved, injection of chemicals. My father was the first to bring Western style conversational therapy into the mix. How he fared in comparison to his overseas colleagues is impossible to say. Due to the reasons I mentioned, his work remained classified even after the USSR breakup. Suffice to say he was the preeminent expert on the subject in this country."

"Leshii kidnapped him so he can get himself analyzed..." said Dawn and immediately felt bad for interrupting.

"He was definitely approached by Leshii, but I don't think it was even a kidnapping. You cannot make someone psychoanalyze your against their will. The stress will subconsciously force them to project their own issues onto your problems. My father went willingly, knowing full well that Leshii would never allow him to leave alive with the knowledge he acquired. He sold his life for four million dollars and a chance to study the most brilliant sociopath this side of Adolf Hitler."

"Four million," Faith whistled, impressed.

"One million a piece for me and my mother when he disappeared. Another two million came two years later along with his body. Our family wasn't rich, but we weren't exactly starving. The money was just a way to alleviate his guilt. It's the job that attracted him." Dmitri tried hard to preserve an even tone, but the liquor was playing its part and Dawn could see he was visibly upset.

"You are deriding your father's decision, and yet you spent a great deal of money and time pursuing the study of the very same man," said Kasek.

"A rhetorical question is one that demands no answer. What do you call a statement that demands one?" Dawn thought looking at Dmitri. He took a moment, but as she expected the answer followed.

"My father was not what you would call a family man, " he began slowly. "He rarely spoke to my mother or me. I think we bored him, myself in particular. I was too normal. Leshii is not much older than I am. I guess I wanted to know more about the son my father wished he had."

Faith shook her head.

"I could see how Leshii would fascinate a dedicated scientist, but wishing that monster for a child would make him..."

"As crazy as the freaks he was studying?" Dmitri smiled "I wouldn't be surprised." He took out a thick folder and put on the table. "This is a complete copy of all my work, interviews, notes. There's a 'final report' there, too. I tried to use my best judgment as to which is fact and which is fiction, but you can draw your own conclusion. I kept it all, even the fairy tale stuff."

"Fairy tale?" Dawn asked without taking her eyes of the folder.

"Three generations of atheistic upbringing might have largely destroyed the organized religion here, but mysticism has persevered and flourished. Leshii is quite an inspirational figure in that regard. There's all kinds of talk of magic and sorcery. One man even told me he keeps pet vampires," Dmitri chuckled shaking his head.

"You drink enough, you see all kinds of crazy things," said Kasek.

"Precisely, " added Faith and raised her glass. "To little green demons!" She drank along with Dawn and Dmitri. Kasek, as he did all night, took only a sip.

"So," he said as the rest of the table was finishing off the caviar appetizers, "You never told us what you want for your work."

"That's because I don't want anything. Not from you. I simply wanted to meet some of Faith's pre-Moscow friends," He smiled looking at the slayer. "I'm afraid it's up to her to pay the terrible price." He laughed nervously as the night came to the most important, for him, moment. "Alright, " he continued taking out an electronic organizer. "Saturday, eight o'clock. We have front row seats at the Bolshoi. Wednesday, noon, we have a private tour of the Weapon's Chamber and the Diamond Fund. Maybe you'll find something you like," he again chuckled nervously. "Then Friday..."

"No, no, no," Faith interrupted. "I don't have time for all this. I'm a busy gal, I got work and stuff. Let's just cut to the finale. Tomorrow. Your place. I can give you nine to eleven, right before my shift at the Pink. Deal?"

"What? No! I mean... that's not..." Dmitri stuttered in complete disarray.

"Okay. Fine. Three hours. That's my final offer. I can give you as far as midnight, but I can't leave later than that, the boss will be pissed." Faith's lips were forming a barely visible smile as she spoke, coy yet merciless. Dawn watched as the last semblance of confidence has disappeared from Dmitri until there was left nothing but a shy and distraught teenager sitting on her right. He stood up from his chair and picked up the folder with shaking hands.

"Screw you!" he shouted throwing it at Faith and practically running out of the restaurant.

"That was the idea!" she shouted after him. The slayer picked up the scattered papers off the floor and put them back inside the container. "Free lunch," she smiled showing off her prize.

Kasek stood up as well taking the folder out of her hands.

"I still had questions for the boy, " he said angrily. "I'll be back soon to pick you up." This was addressed to Dawn.

"Don't," was the short reply.

"I'll bring her back to the hotel." said Faith. Kasek gave her a short stare, then headed quickly after Dmitri.

"You were awful," said Dawn shaking her head at her remaining companion.

"Come on," Faith waved her off dismissively.

"He is so in love with you."

"He's a child. Did you not see the tantrum?"

"He was being sweet and romantic, and you just lobbed a monster loogie onto his good intentions. Not to mentioned stuck us with the check, " Dawn replied, cramming the last caviar cracker in her mouth.

"Relax, ye great humanitarian, " Faith chuckled, "Dima's got an open tab here."

"I see," said Dawn and immediately turned towards the waiters snapping her fingers. "Hey! Running low on fish eggs over here!"

No working the crowds at the Pink. No patrolling city alleys for vampires. This was her night to be a host, and host she did. Club after club. People. So many people. Models, actors, senators, musicians, billionaires, and escorts. Faith kept Dawn moving, never lingering at any one place for long. In the short months she was here the city has grown on her. She felt welcome and at ease. Everyone was speaking her language, Russian though it may be. She never really fit in anywhere before and she wanted to show off this new life she has found. For her part Dawn was just enjoying the ride. The girls' nights out in Rome were never like this and she felt the wild, boundless adult fun Faith kept pouring on fit best with her newly adjusted world view. The cab, probably their eighth of the night, drove them back to the hotel. Dawn, slowly sobering up, marveled at the way the bright red stars on the Kremlin towers looked as the first pinkish rays were punching their way through the darkness, while Faith was laughing silly at her own retelling of various highlights of their night. They got out of the car and the slayer helped walk unsteady Dawn to the hotel door. A couple steps before reaching the top of the flight she stopped and looked intently at her young companion.

"Listen, not that I'm complaining or anything, but why are you so nice to me all of a sudden? I mean, the last time we met, right after I got out of the joint, I remember cold stares and vague threats of bodily harm. Kind of like that watcher pal of yours."

Dawn's head was still spinning a little, her mouth felt dirty and dry. "Mental note: a glass of water and a couple of aspirins before bed," she thought as she answered, slightly slurring, "Things happen. People change. You start seeing things from a different perspective."

"A different perspective?" Faith snickered. "What, did you kill someone, too?"

The look on the teenager's face stopped her mid-laugh. "Dawn?" The forced, icy smile staring back at her made the slayer shiver.

"Of course not, Faith," she heard. "Who would I kill?"

Dawn had disappeared in the hotel lobby for several minutes already, but Faith still stood frozen on the steps until the horn from the cabbie brought her out of her trance.

"Oh, fuck, " she said to herself. "Fucking fuck".

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The next four days passed in roughly the same way: Kasek would scour the city for Dmitri's contacts, while Dawn stayed at the hotel, fully immersed in the file. Kasek was rather disappointed with the research they obtained. It was too concerned with Leshii's early years and contained few details of his latest operations. His European escapades were missing entirely. It did contain the names and descriptions of other members of his gang which the watcher hoped he could use to jump start his own investigation. Dawn did not argue. She was only too happy to be left alone with Dmitri's papers. She wasn't sure why, but she felt the answers she was seeking lay there. Stranger still was not knowing the questions they were answers to. The file contained hundreds of pages, most of them interviews, pieces of overhead conversations, all numbered, classified, and in Russian. The final report was a summary put together from these disparate sources. The main text, typed in normal Times New Roman size ten font, represented what Dmitri thought were the facts. Events in doubt were represented in various shades of red, with references to Zemfira being dark maroon, marking them as the most preposterous. The italics were reserved for Dmitri's conclusions and interpolations designed to bridge the gaps in Leshii's biography. Dawn was surprised at how quickly she has picked up the language. After a few short weeks it was almost second nature to her. Some other time it would have seemed strange, but at the moment she was far too engrossed in the current mystery to question her newfound talent.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alexei Leonidovich Konev was born on July 18th, 1978 to Nina Ivanovna Koneva and an unknown father. Alexei's "father's name" was likely a take on Brezhnev. It has been a custom among the clerks to use the names of current Soviet leaders to fill in the missing information. Nina Koneva, a transient with a history of mental illness, was supposed to have been transferred to a more secure facility when she escaped with the newborn. Dawn put away the copy of the birth certificate and the hospital files in the "done" pile as she read them. Birthed and raised by a mental patient. Kind of makes pointless the whole nature versus nurture argument. She smirked and continued reading. Where Nina Koneva and her son spent the next nine years is unclear. Sometime in the middle of 1986 she gave birth to another child, Lyudmila, while in 1988 the three of them settled near a garbage dump outside of Moscow. Garbage dumps were frequented by transients. Rudimentary shelter and food could be found there. It was also a place where authorities harassment and roundups were least frequent. However, it was during one of those roundups that Nina was shot to death by the police leaving nine year old Alexei to care for his two year old sister.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"There you are." Alexei turned around to see Pete the Fist standing behind him with the usual twisted smirk that never seemed to never leave his face, his left hand opening and closing his faithful switch blade, "You are late."

"I had to make a stop," the boy answered grimly.

"Not with my money you don't," said Pete menacingly. The wiry pimp in his late teens seemed to tower over Alexei's small frame. The boy quickly handed over a handful of wrinkled bills which the teenager just as quickly stuffed into his pocket.

"Now the rest."

"What, 'rest'? That's the rate." said Alexei, slowly backing away. Pete shook his head, the smirk still there.

"I know you get tips, twerp. Hand it over."

"I don't have anymore money, I swear" said the small boy backing away some more. A quick punch under his left eye put him down. A kick in the ribs turned him over spilling the contents under his jacket onto the floor. The Fist stared at a piece of sausage, cheese, a loaf of bread, a few sweets, and a big red apple.

"Your sister, is a fucking drain," he said shaking his head.

"She's none of your business, I feed her out of my cut," Alexei said sitting up, putting the food back into his coat. Pete grabbed him by the collar and lifted him into the air.

"You cut is what I say it is! And I'm getting sick and tired of people not contributing what they should to the organization!" he threw the boy back to the ground and walked away.

"You could have warned me you know, " Alexei spoke to another boy emerging out of the shadow of a large sewer pipe.

"What for? What would you do?" said Val and handed him a half smoked cigarette.

Alexei wiped the blood off his lips and took a couple drags before handing the butt back to his friend.

"I have to do something. And soon," he said after a pause. "Did you see the girls Pete brought out yesterday for that judge? They were a year older than Lyuda, if that."

"Where are you going to go, orphanage? Been there. Same shit, only you don't even get a cut."

"I don't know. Join another gang, maybe. They don't all pimp, you know. Grave, he doesn't pimp."

"Grave's people do heavy. Hits, protection. Y ou're too young."

"They took a guy in, just a few weeks ago, fresh out of the Colony, which means he's no more than fifteen," Alexei quickly retorted.

Val laughed.

"Yozh? I saw that guy. Grave brought him along when he presented Pete and Yuri with the complaints from the Volkov brothers. The guy is a fucking bull. He's as wide as you are tall. Your scrawny ass, my friend, is good for only one thing, I'm sorry to say." The butt has shrank to less than two centimeters and Val threw it into a puddle.

"I have to go", said Alexei giving Val the usual suspicious look.

The dark haired boy put up his hands smiling, "I won't follow. Trust me, man, I really don't want to know where you keep her. Safer for everybody that way."

Alexei wondered about twenty minutes inside the sewers, and when he was sure he wasn't watched he unscrewed a side cover of one the tunnels and disappeared inside.

The giant apple barely fit in her tiny hands. This was the best part of the day. Lyuda would take a bite and slowly chew it, watching her brother watching her. Sometimes he would tell her a story, but usually they just sat there silently. She would chew each bite until the smallest apple bit was swallowed before she would take another. It lasts longer that way. When she's done Alexei has to leave. She didn't want him to go. He doesn't allow her to go outside. Why does he have to go if it is so dangerous? He doesn't want to go, she could tell. He smiles when he leaves, but it's not the same smile he gives her when he comes back. She shouldn't think about it though, not now, the apple isn't even half way done.

"Lyuda!" The booming voice woke her up. She sat up quickly, shivering from the cold.

"Lyuda!" Pete called out again, banging on the pipes. "I know you can hear me. It's been three weeks, Lyuda. Your brother isn't coming back this time, you know it. Come on out! You must be hungry. I got a nice juicy apple for you!" The little girl closed her eyes and held her breath so she could better figure out where the voices were coming from. This was the third time they came for her. A few hours running through the maze of sewer pipes and they again would leave, frustrated. Just a few hours, that's all. If only she didn't feel so tired. If only her stomach wasn't burning so badly.

"There she is!" one of the gangsters shouted. "Pipe seven!"

"We're going after her!" Fist yelled, but silently motioned the third boy to go around. He ran crouching down the designated sewer passage, stomping his feet and banging on the metal walls as hard as he could, trying to drown out the any noise his partner was making trying to cut off their prey.

"Got her!" the victorious cry rang the moldy walls of the labyrinth. Pete crawled out of the tube at the nearest junction and ran to meet his posse. The two gangsters were holding the six-year old by her arms and legs as she writhed and grunted trying to free herself from their grasp.

"You know, guys, I think we got our time's worth. Underneath all that grime she's pretty cute," said Pete poking Lyuda's cheek. "Damn bitch!" he cried out pulling back his bleeding finger. "Customers don't like to be bitten, " he hissed angrily through his teeth. "We're going to have to break this nasty habit. Spread her!" he commanded and started cutting her pants with the switch blade. "Customers don't like screaming either, so we're going to have to watch that, too" he put his knife to the girl's throat while unzipping with his left. "Quiet painful sobs on the other hand ... Serii!"

The warning came too late and the steel pipe landed on the boy's head cracking his scull. What looked like a giant pile of dirty rugs slithered quickly to Pete's other helper, delivering the first blow into the knee cap and the second into the jaw. Erupting into a flurry of swears Fist landed a straight left into where he thought the attacker's head would be. As the punch knocked down his foe, he brought his foot down as hard as he could on the hand that held the pipe to a satisfying crunch of the bones. He was about to plunge his knife into the pile when a second hand came from underneath and grabbed at his crotch. The searing pain caused Pete to fall down onto his knees removing his foot from his opponent's wrist. Immediately both hands grasped his head, plunging the thumbs into his eye sockets. Screams filled the sewers as the eyes slowly dripped out. Once he had a firm grasp of the scull from inside and out, the attacker began to methodically bash Pete's head against the nearest pipe. Almost a minute passed since the teenager's last gasp until he finally stopped. Letting go of the lifeless body the figure in rags moved across the corridor to Lyuda who cowered, shaking in the corner. Her mouth opened as if to cry out, but no sound came out. She was completely paralyzed with fear, the only part of her body that seemed to be able to move were her chattering teeth. The hand, or rather a bandaged bloody stump with three nail less fingers slowly stroked her cheek. The other, with only two, slowly pulled back a makeshift hood to reveal the head almost completely covered with blood soaked strips of cloth, except for lone green eye that seemed to stare into her. She gasped, the power to move suddenly returned to her. She reached out and gently brushed her hand against the empty socket, the exposed nasal bone, and the lipless mouth.

"Alesha, " she whispered. "Where did you go?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was coming down hard. The huge playground in front of the sixteen story apartment box was slowly turning into a swamp. Watching the water rise were three teenage boys sitting on the steps of the entrance number six, silently smoking.

"Fucking rain. It's such a fucking bore, " spoke up the fat boy throwing away his cigarette in disgust.

"It's not our fault you suck at cards, " said the Asian looking kid.

"You didn't have to win all of my money, " the fatso grumbled.

"Of course we did," smiled the third kid. "That's what best friends are for."

"Pushkin, if you don't come up with something interesting right now, I'll fucking pound you for entertainment. Is this the big city excitement everybody was talking about? Fucking pathetic"

The Asian boy, clearly the eldest of the three, gave the fat boy a short, disdainful look. "You miss the fun times at the farm, Yozh?" he asked sardonically.

"Laugh all you want, Jap. Taking a horse galloping across the wet field, the rain hitting you in the face, filling your eyes, your mouth..." Yozh took a flask out of his jacket. "Beats a bottle of vodka any day of the week, " he said overturning it into his mouth. For a few minutes they sat in silence until Pushkin spoke in a low, thoughtful tone.

Had myself a stallion once

It was quite a ride

Then the stallion had me once

And I almost died

All three broke into laughter.

"You're a fucking sicko, Pushkin," said Yozh without malice.

"Hey, so it gets lonely at the farm, we're not judging, " Jap cackled. Perhaps it was the source, perhaps the lack of rhyming, but the latest jab didn't sit well with Yozh. He stood up and with a threatening face prepared to unleash a long, profanity laden comeback that was congealing in his mind when something rather strange attracted his attention.

"Would you fucking look at that!"

Limping up behind Jap was a boy dressed in clothes several sizes too big, the hood of the cloak partially covered his mutilated face. In his right hand he was dragging a large brown sack and in his right he held a hand of a six year old girl.

"You want something?" asked Jap looking over the kids before him.

"I onto 'ok f'agave." said the boy, slaughtering the 'r's with his toothless mouth.

"Was that Russian?" said Pushkin as the others cackled.

"Fucking Armenians now cornered the freak market, too," joked the fat boy. The cackling has swiftly turned into laughter.

"He wants to work for Grave," said the little girl in the most serious and confident tone a six-year-old could muster.

"And here we were wondering why the boss isn't around so much anymore. The sneaky bastard took over Moscow circus!" Pushkin squeezed through laughter which was beginning to turn into a howler. Jap was the first to calm down sufficiently to speak.

"Don't get me wrong kid, " he said, lighting another cigarette. "There's a massive earning potential in this setup you've got going, but better take it to Volkovs, down the First Workers' Street. We don't do beggars."

"No," replied the boy. "You do this." With that he threw his sack some six meters into the air. It ripped as it fell to the ground, spilling its contents, three severed human heads. Immediately the laughter died. For a moment Pushkin stood still trying to catch his breath. It didn't help and soon he was in the bushes being violently separated from his lunch.

"Jap, " Yozh called out to the eldest boy, turning one of the heads with his foot. "Isn't this that Fist guy we were supposed to, you know, um, visit next week?"

Jap lit up another cigarette, seemingly unfazed by the macabre display.

"What's your name?" he asked of the cripple. The boy turned to him, but did not reply.

"Alesha, " the girl answered for him.

"No, your street name."

Lyuda looked up at Alexei, then back at Jap and shrugged.

"A guy who carries heads in his bag should have a street name."

"Leshii1, " Pushkin shouted out, exiting the bushes, wiping the chunks of vomit from his mouth. "Fits like a glove. Which, by the way, he should be wearing on his face at all times."

"What do you think? Alright then, Leshii, " said Jap taking his silence as a sign of approval. "Let's have you meet the boss," he threw out his cigarette and went into the building. The children followed, with Yozh and Pushkin coming up behind them. Leshii didn't know it, but next day was his thirteenth birthday.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

By the time Leshii has become a prominent enough figure to be placed under surveillance he has altered his appearance and the few existing photos showed him similar to the way Dawn first met him at the house. However, from the detailed list of his disfigurements Dmitri compiled from eyewitness accounts he speculated that Alexei has escaped from the clutches of a serial killer operating on the outskirts of Moscow between 1989 and 1992. Four corpses of children aged 11 to 14 were dug up in that time displaying similar mutilations. Was this it? Dawn glanced quickly through police reports and evidence photos. The immense cruelty pointed to a demonic perpetrator. Was the First behind this and Leshii is now taking his revenge? There was nothing in the document to support or reject this theory.

His first two years in the gang Leshii spent as a soldier, gaining immense respect from his peers, but no actual power. That changed shortly after Lyuda was killed in a car accident. Leshii and Jap assassinated the Grave and took over the reigns of the gang, expanding it, and moving into new markets. It was during one those forays that Leshii himself was almost killed in a double cross by one of his clients. The experience led him into the business of arbitration, imposing a much needed structure on the lawless underworld of the Russian capital with unheard of ruthlessness. The number of deaths attributed to him over the years was so great that Dmitri moved them to a separate appendix in the document. As Dawn perused the pages she couldn't help noticing that many of the victims shared the same last name, as well as numerous female names. Wives, girlfriends, probably even children of the actual targets. Dawn put away the report. There was nothing useful there. She returned to the folder and took out the original notes and interviews. These were a lot slower going. It's hard enough reading someone else's handwriting, but trying to make sense of notes taken down by a seriously buzzed reporter of an interview with a completely wasted gangster was another thing entirely. At first she thought she was holding the paper upside down, then she realized that the paper must have been turned several times during the interview and the shaky handwriting seemed to make use of every possible angle from 0 to 360. "Perhaps I'll do better if I get a few beers myself, " Dawn thought half-jokingly. A liquor stand was less than two blocks from their hotel. Actually, liquor was sold two blocks from pretty much anywhere, in any direction, but she preferred a small stand being ran by a friendly, fast talking middle-aged Georgian man. According to Faith Dawn was the only person he voluntarily gave proper change to in all of Moscow. Another day went by and so did another six-pack, but to her frustration Dawn still had neither a clue nor a lead in her investigation. There will still be some time to read on the flight to Rome tomorrow, but those few hours were unlikely to make any difference and she desperately wanted to come back with something useful.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

With a loud gasp Dawn sat up on her bed, her heart pounding furiously like a hungry prisoner on an empty bowl.

"Now that one was new, " she said to herself after finally catching her breath. It was already light outside and the clock was showing 8:37. "I wonder if having 8 hours of nightmares instead of 5 qualifies as 'sleeping better'?" She answered herself with a sigh and shuffled into the bathroom. This time the old hotel pipes held up nicely and for the first time during her stay she was able to enjoy both hot and cold water for the entire length of the shower. Was somebody knocking? Dawn turned off the blower dryer. There it is again. She closed up her robe and opened the room door. Outside stood Dmitri. The open winter coat displayed the same jacket and slacks as she saw in the restaurant, but without the tie.

"May I come in?"

Dawn shrugged and let him inside.

"I heard that you are leaving today, and I wanted to apologize for my behavior the other night. It was very rude of me to leave in this way. I hope..."

"It's fine," Dawn interrupted getting back to her half packed suitcase. "Faith was just being her usual charming self. If my sister were there, she'd smack her."

"Is your sister also into martial arts?"

"She and Faith went to the same school. Sort of," Dawn silently swore as her underpants fell out of her left hand as she was trying to fold them. She hardly missed the pinky on her right, but the three finger grip on her left hand was still weak and clumsy.

"Let me help you with that," The young man rushed over, quickly picking up the silkies. The look on Dawn's face almost made him drop them again. "It's not an excuse to handle your underwear. I'm just good at folding things, and you seemed to be having some trouble..." he stuttered apologetically.

"I'm good, thank you," she said a bit sternly, quickly taking back her undies. "So what do you want?"

"Excuse me?"

"You didn't come here to apologize. What do you want?"

Dmitri sat down on the chair next to the TV, then quickly got up and walked back to the couch.

"You are Faith's friend, right?"

"As much as Faith has friends, I guess."

"What does it take?"

"What?"

"What does it take to date her?"

"Five years ago I'd say, a pulse, " she snickered. "Well, a car and money for liquor wouldn't hurt. But she's been different since she got out. I suppose the generic rules still apply."

"Such as?"

"Persistence is good. As long as it does not become stocking."

"Common hobbies and interests, perhaps?"

"Sure."

"Well, that's my problem," Dmitri took the rest of the clothes from the closet and began laying them out for Dawn to pack. "I have no idea what they are. I hoped you could help me."

Dawn stopped folding and looked at the young man in front of her. He certainly seemed very smart, capable, and judging from some of the sources used in the file, not easily frightened of dark places. The way Kasek treated Faith. Every slayer must have somebody to watch her back, but the Watchers will never forgive her, will never really be there for her, no matter what Buffy orders.

"What have you got so far?" she asked.

"Let's see. Combining what I've seen and she mentioned, she wakes up around noon, " Dmitri began counting on his fingers. "Exercise, breakfast, shopping. Occasionally she would read some obscure monk diary or a medieval bestiary. More training, often with weapons. A little clubbing, then the Pink. Then sleep again. I tried to talk to her about the books, but I got the impression she finds them incredibly boring which threw me off completely. Why does she read them then?"

"She has her reasons, I suppose. What does she do after her shift ends?"

"She goes home."

"Does she?"

Dmitri stopped folding the sweater and stared at Dawn instantly catching on to what she meant.

"Wouldn't that be stocking?"

"Consider it investigative reporting. I wouldn't try to print what you find out if I were you, though"

"What am I supposed to find out?" the young man asked, very much intrigued.

"I'm afraid it's something you have to see for yourself." Dawn quipped and closed the suitcase. "I have to finish my hair now, if you don't mind."

"Of course, I'm sorry, you've been a great help. Thank you so much. If there's anything you need..." he handed Dawn his card. "I'm in your debt."

"It's 'I owe you one'. Although talking the way you do you'll fit the part pretty well," she smiled. This might just work out.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Look at him," Faith whispered referring to Kasek. The line in customs looked at least two hours long, so she decided to stick with Dawn at the airport a while longer. "It's like he's trying to kill me by burrowing a hole in the back of my scull with his eyes."

"He's not the only one staring at you," Dawn responded.

"No, but he is the only one starring above the waist. I'm not used to that," said the slayer making her companion giggle. "I always thought there was something perv-like in the name 'Watcher', and here's a prime example. Now look, if I turn he'll stare at my forehead instead of my breasts, like any other self-respecting male," she stopped and looked at Dawn who has suddenly stopped smiling. "What?"

"Wait here," Dawn grabbed one of her carry-on bags and dashed into the bathroom. She took out Leshii file onto the sink counter and began to frantically leaf through the pages. There. She took out of the Notes section an interview with a former member of Leshii's gang. "...Luck is a funny thing. Take Leshii's sister. The girl lived eight years in the scummiest, most violent underbelly of the city and made it out just fine. Then just as Leshii started moving up in the world she almost gets kidnapped by this European voyeur pervert and then a week later – splat on a Mercedes windshield.." No. The back and forth translation has altered the meaning. It was not 'voyeur', it was 'watcher'! Dawn slapped her hand on the sink counter. Lyuda was a Potential, it is so obvious now. Did the First kill her? They have no slayers by that name. Then again if Leshii bothered to fake her death he'd give her a new one. She stuffed the file back into her bag and ran as fast as she could to the ticket counter.

"One way to London, earliest available flight," she exhaled handing her credit card to the cashier.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lyuda ran ahead of the gang, taking a shortcut through the abandoned construction, trying to keep out of their sight. She knew exactly where they were taking their prisoner. A few dozen meters away from the ravine stood an old wooden barn, one of the few surviving structure of the uprooted village. Most of the housing projects outside the Second Ring road were left to rot by the post-Soviet government. Instead, the construction money flowed towards new casinos and upscale shopping malls around the Red Square as well as the pockets of city politicians and their mob-contractor partners. After all, the new establishments needed a clientele. Eight year old Lyuda was hardly aware of the current business dynamic. The gang was making good money and while the Grave and a number of his underlings have moved into luxurious flats in the center of Moscow, Leshii has made their home here, on the first floor of the unfinished building. "With so many people, it's hard to see where the enemy is," he would say. In all her time with the gang Lyuda has never actually seen the enemy, but the threat of eminent and severe harm has dominated their lives for so long she never questioned her brother's thinking. What Leshii lacked in visible enemies he made up in visible friends. His acute paranoia was well tempered by the belief in his ability to read other people's motives and predict their actions and thus didn't hamper him from forging bonds with rank and file members of the gang. Attracted by his enigmatic behavior, unparalleled rate of success, and penchant for extreme and, often, imaginative violence they would often flock to these modern day ruins to party with the freedom only a desolate place such as this could afford. Yozh and Pushkin now dragging the Stranger by his arms were among such visitors. Lyuda entered the barn through a hole in the wooden wall. She has never been here before, she was not allowed. She has seen many men brought inside by her brother and none of them ever came out. They were bad men, she was sure of it. But not the Stranger. He was different, she knew it somehow. Outside the door she heard the young gangsters laughing and swearing. Lyuda started climbing up the post to the wooden beams at the top. Her heart beat frantically. It was not the height she was afraid of. She came to accept her brother's orders as the only thing keeping her alive in this world awash with cruelty and death, and she was sure that something horrible will most certainly befall her for disobeying. The doors flung open letting in the wild bunch of juveniles. Yozh tossed his captive hard into the wall of the barn, causing Lyuda to tightly hug the beam she lay on as the building shook. The others grabbed the still dizzy Stranger and strapped him onto the interrogation bench. His pockets were emptied and handed over to Pushkin.

"Shit," he smiled, "The guy is English. Stu-art Haw-thorne, " the boy read slowly, enunciating each syllable. "So, " he addressed the bound man, "Got tired of dark Thai meat and thought you can get some white tail in Mother Russia?"

"There's been a mistake, " the man whispered. His Russian was so perfect, in both grammar and pronunciation, it was clear he never used it outside the academia he learned it at. A heavy punch in the kidney cut him off.

"Oh you made a mistake alright. Wrong girl. Very wrong girl." Yozh punched him again in the jaw, knocking out two teeth. "Enjoy this, English, because these are the most pleasurable moments you have left in your short life." He was about to punch him again, but Pushkin grabbed his hand.

"Have some respect, man. He's not ours to fuck up. Leshii will be here any minute."

"This will be fun to watch, " snorted Yozh.

"Oh yeah! I even got an epitaph made up, 'An English lies here who liked little kids. He's missing an ear and some other bits'!" As the gangsters laughed Hawthorne closed his eyes, swallowing the salty blood dripping into his mouth. It was pointless to argue with them now; he must wait until this "Leshii" arrives. He didn't have to wait long. Leshii limped into the barn followed by Jap and a few others. He stopped about five meters from the entrance observing the man stretched out on the bench.

"Is this what you called me in for?" he asked Yozh and Pushkin who had run up to greet him.

"We found him talking to Lyuda. Giving her candy, to get her to come with him, " they quickly blurted out, almost in unison.

"Where is she?" said the cripple in a coarse whisper.

"She's fine, " Pushkin replied quickly. "He didn't have a chance to do anything, but we figured you'd want to make sure he never will."

Leshii pushed him aside and walked over to the prisoner. He grabbed his head and forcefully turned his face toward him, breaking the restraint around his neck. For a few seconds Hawthorne looked silently at Leshii before the look of guarded curiosity on his face gave way to utter horror.

"My God," he gasped in English. "You're human!" Whether he understood the words or not the boy's expression did not change.

"You tried to hurt my sister, but you don't know what pain is. I will teach you, I was an observant student."

"This is all a misunderstanding, " the Englishman switched back to Russian in a last ditch attempt to save his life. "I'm not a pedophile. Your sister is special..."

"And you just couldn't help yourself? This guy is something!" Yozh shook his head laughing.

"That's not what I meant, " Hawthorne spoke quickly as his head was strapped back in. "I am a Watcher, your sister was chosen..."

"So he is a scout in his little gang of perverts," Pushkin smiled. "Perhaps he can name names."

"This is too profitable a business," Jap spoke up from the back of the barn, "Involving important people."

"So fucking what?" Yozh shouted turning to Jap, grimacing in anger in disgust. "Not make it personal? It is personal!"

The thin gangster took the cigarette out of his mouth and slowly exhaled a thick white cloud.

"This man is Leshii's to deal with," he said in the same calm and authoritative tone. "But before we start climbing up the food chain we need to carefully assess the situation and get approval from the boss"

"You are getting a completely wrong idea, " Hawthorne began again. "I'm here to prepare her..." This time he stopped on his own. Every word coming out of his mouth seemed to be digging him deeper into his grave. He searched frantically for the right phrase before the dull gleaming instruments Leshii was laying out in front of him were put to use. "Your sister is magical. She has great power in her, a destiny."

"This guy is unbelievable," said Pushkin punching the post. "Now he's from Star Search!"

"You have to believe me, I..." A powerful punch in the gut left Hawthorne gasping for air in the middle of the sentence.

"...talk too much," finished Leshii and turned to the others, "Leave."

The young gangsters looked at each other confused.

"Why?" Pushkin asked.

"Leshii is right," said Jap still standing alone at the barn entrance. "This is his personal business and we have work to do in the city."

"Fuck the city, " barked Yozh "I want to hear the pig squeal!"

"This wasn't a suggestion," Jap's steel like demeanor was now infusing itself into the tone of his voice as well as the glare of his eyes. The gang reluctantly followed the elder teenager out the door. As the barn emptied, Lyuda began to crawl slowly along the roof beam until she was directly over the prisoner. Perhaps now that the others have left, she would be able to convince her brother that the Stranger was not the bad man they said he was. Still she remained hidden. Her desire to help was fighting a vicious battle with fear for control of her tiny body.

"You were saying," said Leshii as Hawthorne breathing became more regular.

"There are monsters out there, Mr. Leshii, not all of them human," Hawthorne blurted the words out as fast as he could. "Vampires, zombies, werewolves. They are all real. But so is the Slayer. A girl with the strength and skill to destroy them."

"My sister has no strength."

"Not yet. She is just a Potential. She might or might not receive her powers. We never know who it is until it happens, but we search for those whose chances are highest and train them so if one of them is called she will be ready. I know it sounds insane, but it is the truth, you have to believe me."

"I am insane and still I don't believe you. But she does. Don't you, Lyuda?" he said a little louder and tapped one of the posts that held up the roof beam the girl lay on. There was no use hiding. Lyuda swallowed hard and started to climb down, ready to accept whatever punishment awaited her.

"I have been to many dark corners of this city, yet I've seen nothing like you describe," said Leshii, releasing the restraints. The Watcher quickly responded trying to capitalize on the sliver of interest his captor began to show. "The KGB has run a ruthless cleansing campaign in the capital for decades. Most creatures fled to small towns or were destroyed. Those who remained have learned to cooperate and keep a low profile. Not anymore. In the current chaos the demonic population is swelling, becoming bolder. They can easily be found if you know where to look," Hawthorne paused trying to figure out if the young cripple really believed him or just didn't want to spill blood in front of his kid sister. He glanced over to the little Potential who also was hopefully watching her brother's face for some hint of his thought process.

"You have twenty four hours to show me a monster, Watcher," Leshii finally spoke. "Or I will show you one."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was past two in the morning and the dormitory was quiet as a church. Stefka opened her door and peeked into the common room. Enise shared the big bedroom with Kate and the German's snoring would often drive her out to the couch. This time it was empty. Satisfied that everyone was sound asleep she closed the door and walked over to her nightstand where the candle in front of St. Nicholas icon was down to the last few centimeters. She took out a new one out of the top drawer and lit it off the dying flame. Once the candle was replaced Stefka knelled in front of the icon. She closed her eyes, bowed her head, and putting her cross pendant to her lips whispered a prayer in the tongue of her birth, knowledge of which she would not admit to anyone, but the Lord.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mortimer sipped the wine slowly watching Buffy pace around the balcony with her cell phone. The ability to read lips in any language is one he often found useful. Unfortunately it wasn't one he possessed.

"Uh-oh", he said as Buffy returned to the table twirling the phone in her hand, "I know that look. It's not a good look."

"It was Dawn."

"Is she alright?"

"She's on a plane to London." Buffy's sentences were lacking the proper inflection, but her tone and the look in her eyes were one giant question mark.

"And that's bad because..?"

"Because I'm in Rome. Why is she flying to London?"

"Is she a big Chelsea fan? Why are you asking me?"

"Isn't it why you called me here?"

"No, I got some information on the First. It's not related. Actually, I don't know if it's unrelated, because that would imply I know why Dawn is going to London. Which I don't, so I don't think it's related."

"Hmm," Buffy tapped the table with the steak knife looking suspiciously at the Immortal.

"Didn't she tell you why she was going there?" he asked in turn looking suspiciously at her knife.

"She said she has a hunch to confirm."

"Well, there you go. London is where the Watchers Academy is with its archives."

"That's true."

"It's London, Buffy. She'll be fine. Have some shrimp, " he pushed a large plate towards her.

"Why does this shrimp have two tails?" she asked picking up one of the pieces. "Is this a Springfield shrimp?"

"B'erkesh, actually. There's over one hundred sixty seven thousand species in that world. There's not much else there, but the shrimp there definitely is. All kinds. Some are tiny. Some are huge, almost the size of a dolphin. Those don't taste very good though. There are two-tailed shrimp. Tentacled shrimp, terrestrial shrimp, cave shrimp, mountain climbing shrimp, tree dwelling shrimp...

"It's a shrimp world, I got it, no need to go all Bubba on me, " she dunked hers into the cocktail sauce. "Any flying shrimp?"

"Flying shrimp?! Did you just say 'flying shrimp'? Good Lord!"

"Sorry, sorry."

"No more wine for you. Flying shrimp, " Mortimer mumbled shaking his head. "That's just crazy"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dawn was beginning to feel stupid. She has been sitting at the table for well over four hours ordering nothing, but bread and wine. She wasn't positive if it was the third or the fourth serving she was wrapping up, but she was sure she saw the waiters giving her looks. Not the "chica bellisima!" looks she was used to getting, but the "crazy bread-lady" looks. She sighed and grabbed the last piece out of the basket and for the twenty something time started smearing it in olive oil in slow, swirling motion. This was the best she could do, the restaurant she heard Buffy mentioned as her rendezvous with Leshii. She didn't know how to contact him, she wasn't even sure if he was still in Italy. She could only hope that he had an operative working here who would inform him of her presence. She just had to make it clear that she didn't come here by accident. "I think four hours chewing bread would attract anyone's attention," Dawn thought. She popped the last slice into her mouth and called for a check. Almost that very moment the waiter behind her tripped and the falling tray sprayed her with the third best crème brule in Rome.

"God, damn!" she shrieked and paying no heed to the waiter's apologetic cries ran into the bathroom to take care of the stains before they settled. "My best skirt," she mumbled sadly under her breath, carefully blotting the crème with a paper towel. Suddenly she stopped. From the corner of her eye she thought she saw the floor wobble, like the surface of a pond under a slight breeze. "I guess this answers the question if I had three or four glasses," she thought. The floor wobbled again. Two small hands reached up through the stone tiles and grabbed Dawn by the ankles.

"Down the rabbit hole," said Zemfira and pulled.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Stuart Hawthorne stood in the rain outside the Sheremet'evo airport for almost twenty minutes now. He tried to light a cigarette, but the wind kept putting out the matches.

"I don't want you smoking near my sister," he heard behind him. Hawthorne quickly turned around.

"The papers," Leshii handed him the folder. "The British passport is for Emma Hawthorne, born 1986. I got the entry date stamped in her passport, same as yours. The last page is your Bulgarian contact number and photo. He should have all the papers ready when you arrive. Show me the report you have for the Council"

The Watcher took out a small book.

"It's all there, the last two pages. I really don't understand the need for such secrecy. I promise you your sister's identity is safe with the Council."

"Secrets have a habit of coming out, and the more people know them the sooner it happens. I have many enemies; I do not want my sister becoming a way to get to me."

"I hardly think any of your enemies have connections to the Council or operate in England."

"No. But I'm still young. I plan to make a lot more enemies. Important ones, too. Lyuda!" he called out. Out of nowhere the eight year old appeared. This was only the third time Hawthorne saw her. No torn sports coat and dirty sweat pants. This time she was clean, her hair nicely combed. She was dressed in new Versace jeans and jacket. Not the Chinese knock offs populating Moscow swap meets, but authentic, the kind you can only get for dollars at downtown boutiques.

"Mr. Hawthorne is your Watcher, Lyuda. But until you get to Bulgaria you will call him 'Daddy', and he'll call you Emma. Understand?"

The girl nodded.

"I've taught her some English. She doesn't know a lot of words, but her pronunciation sounds British enough. At least to the customs here. The dollars will help, just in case. You have them, right?"

"Yes, fifteen hundred in small bills like you said."

"Good. You might need to spread that around, but don't offer first. You are a tourist; they don't expect a bribe from you. Plus there are still some honest people in customs left from the old days. Not many, soon even less, but who knows? Don't offer it first. If they want your money, they'll tell you. Now, Lyuda, listen carefully," He took the girl by the shoulders and lowered his head until his green eye stared directly into her blues. "This is no longer your name. You will tell it to no one; you will not answer to it. You will never speak Russian again. You will never let anyone know you understand it. On the plane Mr. Hawthorne will tell you about a little girl from Sophia. Her name will be your name. Her family will be your family. You will not mention me to anyone. You will not try to find me. Don't worry. I'll always know where you are and I'll be there if you need me. You understand, Mr. Hawthorne, " said Leshii taking his cane back from the Englishman and giving it a little twirl. "If something happens to her I'll murder every single person on your Council, and you, sir, I will skin alive."

"That goes without saying", Hawthorne tried to smile. From the little time he spent with Leshii in the Moscow ganglands, he knew this wasn't an empty threat.

"We are done. Go now," the young gangster's tone was even and final. Hawthorne took the little girl's hand and quickly walked away. Lyuda looked up at the tall man leading her. Her brother has forbid her from even talking to an adult, but now he has given her away to this one. She is to call him "Daddy" in front of the others and though she knew it was just pretend, she couldn't help smiling. He's taking her to a good place, a safe place. Her brother told her so and he is always right. Yet if things do go right they will never meet again. Three months from now the full realization of what that means will leave the eight year old bowling in her bed for days, but now she squeezed Hawthorne's hand a little tighter and closed her eyes trying to imagine this wondrous land called Dorset where her new house sits on top of a tall green hill and dolphins play in the ocean below.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The basement was brightly lit, yet somehow it seemed that Leshii's non-reflective sunglasses were sucking in all the light. The furniture in the room had an eerie glow to it or perhaps it was fear that made Dawn see things. Up above them the noisy Italian restaurant was bustling with customers, waiters, and buss boys. Yet down here she thought she could hear the crackling of tobacco in Leshii cigarette, the buzzing of fluorescent light bulbs. He could shoot her right here and no one will ever know, he doesn't even need a silencer.

"That's quite a story, miss Summers," Leshii spoke after a while, "And as much as I wish it was true, my sister is buried twenty four kilometers south of Red Square. I visit her grave every autumn".

"I'm sure you do. With a bouquet of yellow flowers, that's the custom, right? Hell, knowing you, there are probably real bones of an eight year old girl in that grave," Dawn said with a forced smile, "But her DNA isn't going to match yours. Stefka's will. The Bulgarian angle was really clever. Almost fooled me, too. I knew you wouldn't trust your sister's real name to the Council, so I have anticipated an identity switch. We have twenty four slayers from your part of the world, but not one of them was identified as a Potential ahead of time. I thought I hit a dead end. Then it occurred to me that since you never showed up in Sunnydale, then your sister wasn't among the Potentials protected by Buffy. Too bad for you there were only seven girls that managed to survive without her. Still, even with only seven candidates it wasn't easy. Most of the Council's records perished in the explosion, but some survived, including the diary of Stuart Hawthorne which Stefka's new Watcher had checked out. It indicated that he flew to Moscow to find a Potential discovered by the Council's psychics, but found no one. Then, at his insistence, they did another reading and it showed that Potential in Sophia. Since this time Hawthorne returned with the girl, Stefka, everyone just assumed the initial reading went wrong. What they didn't know was that when Hawthorne asked for the second one he was already in Sophia with your sister. While there were plenty of Watchers who knew Russian, Hawthorne (praise the security through obscurity!) was the only Watcher who spoke Bulgarian. I suppose, if it was possible, you'd make her Icelandic, but there was that pesky Slavic accent that needed to be adequately explained. You took care of the paper trail, too. Hawthorne had a replacement passport issued at the British embassy in Sophia. There were no 'pickpockets'; he destroyed his old one to hide the date of his actual departure from Moscow. Interestingly, almost all Aeroflot's archived information from that year was also destroyed, in a gas leak explosion. Are we good, or do you want me to continue?" Dawn was desperately trying to gauge Leshii's reaction to her revelation, but his face remained an emotionless mask. Perhaps because most of it actually was one.

"I always found it interesting how the conspiracy theorists turn lack of evidence supporting their allegations into evidence in and of itself. A self-reinforcing delusion. One of the more fascinating types of mental illness. I have a set way of dealing with blackmailers, miss Summers, and the fact you're still alive is proof that all this is no more than a product of your overactive imagination, " he said, putting out his cigarette.

"I disagree, " Dawn pressed on, "The one and only reason I'm still alive is that you are afraid to mess with Buffy. As for proof, the DNA test I mentioned previously will work just fine. Stefka's is easy to obtain and I'm sure yours is floating around somewhere out there. Maybe your enemies are using it to design a custom poison or a genetically specific plague, or maybe I've been spending too much time watching 'Alias' with Andrew. The bottom line is a simple insinuation that you have a weakness and there'll be dozens of groups looking to take advantage. If this information gets out you'll be vulnerable just like everyone else."

"I would think you recent experience would have taught you not to overly rely on your sister's protection. I can deal with the Slayer if need to."

A veiled threat. But also an even more veiled admission of the truth of her discovery. Is she actually winning this conversation? What's the prize, a bullet in the head?

"With Willow in the mix? I highly doubt it, " Dawn tried to maintain a confident tone, but anxiousness was causing her to speak faster and faster. "But that's not what I meant when I said you were afraid. It's Stefka. She's no longer the adoring little sister ready to follow you anywhere. She has found her own way and you don't exactly fit in that framework anymore. You do all these things for her, but why has become a lot less important than what it is you do. I bet it got pretty strained when she stayed with you last Spring. She's definitely quiet and humble most of the time, like a good Christian should be, but I've heard her dress down a student a couple of times, she's got a lot of passion and conviction. What do you think is going to happen if you decide to take out Buffy, a woman she idolizes, in her name?"

Leshii remained quiet.

"Besides, " she continued, "I'm really not asking for that much to be worth all that trouble. My terms are simple. I want to be part of your organization. I want to learn how you work. It's even better than if I would have asked for nothing, this way you get to keep an eye on me at all times." The pause was driving her crazy. She could feel Leshii looking into her eyes and she answered in kind. For what seemed like an eternity she stared into the darkness of his glasses, her eyeballs starting to burn as they dried out. This isn't a staring contest. Why isn't she blinking? Blink, you idiot, blink!

"You went to all this trouble just for an admission? You could have just asked."

"I could have and you would have turned me down."

"I would?"

"For the same reason you're not putting bullets through my head, you don't want to mess with my sister. Now, the way I see it you have two choices. Let me in and we'll have a moderately pissed off Buffy, which, with my help, you should be able to manage just fine. Kill me and, well, I won't be able to help."

Another pause. This one was shorter.

"Is that all?" Leshii's tone remained bland and inexpressive as it has throughout the conversation. There was no way to tell whether he made a decision or what it might be. Dawn nodded. She presented her case the best she could.

"Wait here," he said and got off the chair.

"Heads up, " she tossed Leshii a small, lever bound volume. "It's Hawthorne's diary. I didn't make any copies. Consider this a goodwill gesture" Leshii walked out of the room without saying a word. Dawn sat down in the leather chair, closed her eyes, and exhaled trying to calm down. The blood pulsed painfully in her head, the sound of her heartbeat seemed deafening, but she was still alive and that's always good.

Leshii stood for a second behind the door turning the book in his hands then briskly walked down the hall to the part of the catacombs Zemfira turned into her bedroom. The vampire lay on the bed hugging a pillow. A gigantic smile stretched across her eleven year old face from ear to ear.

"I take it you heard everything"

"The little girl's got your balls, Godfather," Zemfira giggled, "Maybe I should work for her?" Leshii sat on the bed and leaned over her, "Is the spell still active?"

The smile vanished from Zemfira's face. She sat up, hugging the pillow tighter.

"Yes. It should be good for at least another hour. Do you think It sent her here?"

"Hawthorne died seven years ago. According to the Council's procedure the diary should have been stored in the archives where it would have been destroyed by the explosion. Instead, the only evidence that could link Lyuda to Stefka conveniently shows up in O'Connor's personal belonging. On one hand, it could simply be that Lyuda's latest Watcher wanted some information from her predecessor. On the other hand, Hawthorne has only been Lyuda's Watcher for two years, O'Connor for six. Whatever useful information she could have strained from this religious dribble of his, she would have gotten it years ago. Of course, the Harbingers killed her, so she can't exactly say which hand is right."

"This all sounds way too complicated, " said Zemfira tossing and catching the pillow. "If the First wanted to expose your sister, there are easier ways to do it."

"It's the Scythe. The operation was very well planned out against the Slayer, but there was no defense against my interference. Were Vizzinis expendable? Obviously. But was it a mistake? Was the First too rash, or too lazy, or too self-confident to realize that I will not stay put? No, thinking this way is what trapped the Slayer in the first place. I refuse to underestimate my enemy." Still looking in her general direction Leshii seemed completely oblivious to the bewildered stare on Zemfira's face.

"I've lost you a few miles back. What does the Scythe have to do with Stefka's true identity?"

"Scan the girl for Necromancer magic. If she is a sleeper agent put an alarm barrier in her mind. I want to know when that personality wakes up," was his non-reply.

Zemfira was used to dialogs with Leshii spontaneously becoming monologues, so lack of answer to her initial question did not surprise her. The order did. If there was any sure pattern to Leshii's strategy in all their years together is that as soon as an enemy was identified it was eliminated. Triangulation, disinformation, double agents, Leshii never played games before.

"You want to bring her in? Even if she is the First's spy?! Why?"

"It's time," he stood up and threw the diary into the fireplace.

1A common character in Russian folklore, it is a demon that lives in the darkest regions of the forest, renown for its ugliness and trickery.


	4. Chapter 4: First Impressions

**Chapter 4: First Impressions**

His legs were about to give out, but Alexandro kept pushing, trying to put an even greater distance between himself and his pursuers. Finally he collapsed on the grass panting heavily. He put his ear to the ground listening for footsteps, but heard nothingsave for his own rapid breathing and the scared beating of his heart. Whoever they were they weren't too close, but Alexandro knew he should not linger. He got up and started once again down the mountain. The slash wound on his side was oozing blood and dull pain from the dislocated shoulder radiated throughout his body. He has always been the lucky one. They have made a good living of robbing the dig sites, his brother and him. Their gang has grown large enough so that often they didn't even have to sneak around. The mortified scientists and their diggers would simply let them take what they wanted. Not today. Rodrigo alone must have shot a dozen of those robbed fanatics before they carved him up with their strange curved blades. Alexandro ran before they could overwhelm him. His friends' curses and cries for mercy were soon drowned out by the monotonous shuffle of the robed posse behind him. They probably lost him as he took the shortcut through the caves and now all of his hopes lay with the stone tablet he was hiding underneath his shirt. The money that Englishman promised them should be enough to get him safely across the border. He certainly isn't safe anywhere near here. Something told him that his pursuers had an above average dedication to their work. Perhaps it was their gouged out eyes, sawed off noses, and sown in mouths. Alexandro shuddered at the thought and quickly made a cross. Suddenly he stopped. Ahead of him sat a large man. Barely five and a half feet tall he must have weighed at least two hundred pounds. His massive shoulders complimented by a large belly and thick, as the tree stump he was sitting on, legs, made him look like a giant cube of human flesh on top of which sat a big round head with a very short buzz haircut.

"Hey there, muchacho," the man spoke mixing bad English with even worse Spanish. "How did the work go today? Exciting, no?" Alexandro looked around examining his options.

"Who are you?" he asked suspiciously. The man smiled.

"I, mi amigo, am your chance of getting out of this shit alive."

"That's a pretty big chance I seem to have," the thief smiled back.

The large man smiled even wider.

"I'm not big," he said pulling a sawed off shot gun out of recess of his coat. "I'm fat." Alexandro body collapsed on the ground among the scattered pieces of his scull. The man walked over to the corpse and pulled out the tablet.

"Got it!" he shouted. Another man emerged from the bushes. In a complete contrast to his partner he was tall and wafer thin.

"Do you have to make so much noise?" he asked annoyed.

"What's the matter, Marty boy? Is the big bad Brit afraid of a few little Harbingers?" teased the fat man. Martin motioned him to come closer and handed him night vision binoculars.

"Over there, by the waterfall, do you see her?" he asked pointing into the darkness.

"Oh yeah! Good eye, English. Tits seven, ass is at least an eight."

"Brains eleven. That's Willow Rosenberg, the source of our current problems," said the Englishman nervously scratching his long, sharp nose.

"Ah, that one. Right," Yozh nodded still looking through the binoculars. "What is she doing here?"

"Same thing we are, I'm afraid. The first dig site is just a few hundred meters away."

"You think she heard the shot?"

"No, she didn't react. The noise from the water must have drowned it out. This is most undesirable," Martin continued frustrated. "She's going to find out about It, and whether she lives or dies this entire mountain will be crawling with slayers and their ilk, and we'll never find that bloody temple!"

"We may already have," Yozh cut off his rant. "Go back to the jeep and test the tablet. Use the satellite phone to call Leshii. Give him all the latest, including the witch. I'll track her. Are your radio batteries charged?"

"I charge them every morning just like you instructed, " said the Englishman showing Yozh the green light on his handset.

"Great, " smiled the gangster grabbing it out of his hand and sticking his in its place. "Charge mine when you get to the car. Check in every two hours. Go!" Martin disappeared into the darkness as Yozh set down on the cliff and took out the binoculars. "Oh, yeah," he smiled looking down the slope. "That's right, baby, pick that rock up. Very nice. Nice sweater you got there, too. Definitely gets cold this high in the mountains. Maybe you should jump up and down a little to warm up..."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She must have walked through this door three dozen times by now, but this morning the restaurant seemed eerie unfamiliar. The dining area was dark with barely any sun getting through the heavy curtains. There were two candles lit on the front table where Dawn sat. The rest were empty except for a two silhouettes in the far corner somehow getting by with no light at all. Dawn smiled an awkward smile as Buffy came in and waved her in. As soon as she sat down a waiter put down a soda and a pizza in front of her.

"Four cheeses. Extra portion of each, you favorite, " said Dawn still smiling tensely.

"I thought Dino's was closed on Mondays, " said Buffy switching her glances from Dawn to the kitchen, to the figures at the far table. Something wasn't quite right here.

"Not this Monday. How have things been going?"

"You tell me. Where have you been?"

"Yes, I did get here last night. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I had an interview of sorts. Didn't want to say anything until I knew for sure if I got the job"

Buffy raised her glass as if to drink, but what she wanted was a view of the back of the room without turning her head. There is a reason Dawn was nervously dragging out her vowels.

"I take it you did," she said taking a small sip from her "surveillance" glass.

Dawn smiled.

"What kind of job is it?"

"I start out as an assistant, until I learn the business, probably some fieldwork, too, but if all goes well, I should get into management very quickly, " Dawn swiftly stuttered through the sentence.

"And what kind of business is it?"

"I'll be working for Leshii."

Thank God. For a while there she thought it was something serious.

"You brought me here to tell me you've decided to become a mobster?" Buffy smiled sarcastically, "Don't you think it's a rather big step? Perhaps you should brush up on your shoplifting skills first, then maybe hit a liquor store or two, before you get into pimping and racket?"

"I'm serious. I called you here to say goodbye. I'm leaving for Kiev this afternoon."

"No you're not," The smile was gone now. "Are you kidding me? You aren't going anywhere! I know I've been told to give you some room. I know you hate me, you blame me for what happened, but..."

"No! No, no, no!" Dawn reached across the table taking Buffy's hands. "It's not you I hate, it's not you I blame, I love you, Buffy! But there are things I need to know, things you can't teach me and Leshii can."

"He has nothing to teach you! He's nothing but a murderer!"

"Well, so am I!" Dawn blurted out. She didn't plan it, but so what? She watched her sister's shocked expression blinking back at her, mouth slightly agape. Might as well be now, perhaps it will make it easier for her to let her go. "Those men in the house," Dawn continued, pulling each sentence out of herself as though a tooth. "Leshii didn't kill them, he just tied them up."

"What are you saying?" Buffy's brain simply refused to process the incoming information. "No, you didn't... It doesn't matter... You were in shock... A momentary..."

"It wasn't 'momentary'! I wanted blood and he made it easy for me. He left just the two of us with them," the volume of Dawn's voice kept getting lower as did her gaze. "He didn't put her there just to teach, but to take the blame," she almost whispered now staring at her plate. "Even if one of his men would blab, you'd assume all that mess the work of the sadistic little vampire. But I know which part was mine. I got the blood I wanted and a lot more with it. I have to go, Buffy. I have to find out who I am."

"You are not anybody! You are the choices you make, and this is the wrong choice, and I'm not letting you make it!"

Dawn lifted up her head and looked Buffy straight in the eyes.

"You can't stop me," she said in low deliberate tone.

"Oh yes I can!" The Slayer grabbed Dawn by her forearm, pulling her from the chair and turned toward the exit. Between her and the door stood Leshii, slightly behind him was Zemfira.

"You are a valuable client, miss Summers," Leshii spoke, "But where I come from customers are not always right. Especially when they manhandle my people."

"Out of my way," Buffy said menacingly.

"No."

Buffy let go Dawn's hand and threw a right punch at Leshii's head, but it did not land. With surprising quickness and strength the Russian grabbed her arm and spinning sent her crashing into the table all the way on the other side of the room. Buffy jumped up, grabbing a broken table leg.

"Nice. I guess this explains the romantic atmosphere." She picked up the table top with her left and threw it at the side window. The light rushed into the restaurant, sending Zemfira cowering into a dark corner. Leshii stood motionless.

"I may be a poor excuse for a human being, but I'm not a vampire."

"Fine by me. I'll just use this to bash your brains in then," said Buffy taking a step towards her opponent. It is at that moment she realized her feet weren't touching the floor.

"Adhaesi!" the witch hissed from the corner. A powerful force pulled Buffy into the far wall, her arms and legs sticking to the brick as though glued. Zemfira stood up, her vampire face still slightly smoldering from the exposure to the sun. She slowly extended two fingers of her left hand until they were leveled with her pitch black eyes.

"Conflare!" The pulling force increased and Buffy felt her body sinking into the brick until only her face remained outside the wall.

"You are still my client, miss Summers," Leshii spoke again. "And I would hate to see our relationship deteriorate. But if you persist in attacking members of my organization, I will be forced to mark yours for extermination," he turned to Dawn who was helping Zemfira to wrap herself in a full body cloak, "Are we set?"

"Yes," Dawn replied. She stood up and took one step towards her sister. "Good or bad this is my choice. Don't try to find me; you'll only get people hurt. When I'm ready to come back I will"

Buffy said nothing as the three of them walked out the door. Her face contorted from extreme strain as she tore her right arm out of the wall, then her left. The torso and the legs followed. The Slayer ran out of the restaurant as the mutilated wall continued to shake and crumble behind her. Dawn and Leshii were nowhere to be seen. She turned left and headed towards her apartment, pushing through the crowd of gawkers that came running to look at the pile of wood, glass, and brick which was once called Dino's Pizzeria.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy paced around her sister's room from time to time throwing her glance at the monitor. Normally Dawn moved the videoconferencing setup to the living room, but the last thing Buffy wanted to worry about was properly reconnecting all those wires.

"No!" she shouted at the screen. "I said 'eleven', 'twelve', this one is at least sixteen!"

"I'm sorry, Buffy," said Giles somewhat frustrated himself. "You get to be my age and every woman under thirty might as well be twelve. What about this one?" He put up another book illustration before the camera on his end.

"That's it!"

"Zemfira. She's over twenty twelve year olds. Hasn't been sighted since the first World War. At least not as of nineteen sixty seven," he added flipping to the back cover.

"Do you think Willow can take her?"

"I'm sure we have more than a few witches capable of the task."

"Excellent. Get in touch with your MI6 contacts and see if they have any leads on Leshii's hideout in Kiev. Dawn said they were flying there, so if we teleport ahead of them we'll have a huge surprise advantage."

"To do what exactly?"

"To get Dawn back, what do you think?"

"Buffy, Dawn wasn't kidnapped; she left of her own free will."

"She's a traumatized seventeen year-old, she has no free will!"

"What I mean is that she is no immediate danger. In fact the only danger I foresee at the moment is the one coming from a half-cocked rescue attempt."

"I have to get her out of there!"

"I've read Leshii's file. He means what says. If you try to take Dawn he will retaliate. Harshly."

"We'll deal with it."

"No! The First is on the move and the last thing we should be doing is getting into a war with a potential ally!"

"Bull! We don't know what Leshii wants!"

"Exactly. He's been expending a great deal of resources fighting the First, but you couldn't even get him to admit he knows what It is. It's possible that Dawn found something. She stole a whole shelf of documents from the archive and rendezvoused with Leshii immediately following. This 'joining the mob' might very well not be what it seems. She may be trying to bridge the differences, in which case..."

"I don't care about any of that! I want my sister back!"

"We don't know what has happened just now, Buffy. We don't know what's involved and until we do any knee-jerk reaction is going to hurt Dawn, not help her. We'll keep an eye on her. The first sign of danger and we will act, I promise you, but not now. Not until we know more. Take a few hours to cool down and you'll see that I'm right."

Buffy swept the monitor and the camera off the desk, ending the conversation. Willow, Willow, why aren't you picking up your phone? Buffy sat at the bottom of the staircase staring at her handset, as it once again played the witch's cheerful voice mail greeting. Giles is right, there's nothing for her to do, but wait. And wait, and wait. She jumped up and burst through the building door onto the street and winced as the sun hit her eyes. Everything is wrong. What she wouldn't give for a moonless night, a stake, and a dozen vampires right now. Forget the stake, she would just rip their heads off with her bare hands. Anything, but wait. And wait, and wait.

It was only two in the afternoon, but Mortimer has already finished his breakfast. He's been waking up unusually early this entire week. The excitement of courting the Slayer was definitely affecting his routine. He even started reading morning newspaper again to pass the extra time, something he hasn't done since the year it was invented. He was just about to wrap up the international news section when a loud, insistent banging came on the front door. "That's strange," Mortimer thought, "How could anybody be knocking without ringing the bell at the gate first? What, did they just jump over the four meter wall? Wait a minute..."

"I got it!" he shouted, waving off the butler who was about to unlock the door. He stopped at the full length mirror in the corridor, adjusted his hair and robe, and then leisurely opened the right half of the large oak entryway.

"Buffy, " he smiled at his visitor, "To what do I owe-oh!" he shouted as the two-handed push sent him flying the entire length of the corridor and straight onto a living room couch. Half a second later Buffy landed on top of him, covering his open in utter bewilderment mouth with hers. The hard kiss lasted a full twenty seconds before she broke it off and looked quizzically into his eyes.

"... the pleasure, " Mortimer exhaled, finally finishing his sentence

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .**

The night was almost over, but Willow hardly noticed. She was moving practically on autopilot, spewing out appropriate spells and incantations necessary for the search at hand, while the largest share of her formidable mind was devoted to rehashing the events of the last twelve hours in a continuous and heart wrenching loop.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She has almost finished loading her suitcase when Buffy returned to the apartment from another one of her 'not-dates' with the Immortal. Willow even thought she caught a whiff of alcohol.

"Packing in the middle of the night," said Buffy noticing the fullness of her bag. "Can't be good news."

"Sure it can. I found our mystery caster."

"Didn't you say the spell link was too weak to narrow it beyond South America?"

"We got lucky. I isolated the spell signature, which is like a caster's fingerprint only we didn't have a database to compare it to. So then I decided to perform this regressive locator incantation that," Willow stopped mid-sentenced as she saw Buffy's eyes start glazing over. "Made me get carried away with the magic-babble again. Basically I sent word to all the covens out there to start sampling any evil magic they find and I just got a good match on a plague that's destroying lama grazing pastures near Santa Lucia in Peru."

"Lama grazing? O the nefarious fiend!" Buffy laughed plunking herself into the comfy armchair. She was definitely buzzed.

"It's not funny, miss 'free mid-town apartment and expense account', " said Willow slightly miffed that the response she elicited was more giggly than congratulatory. "It affects livelihoods of real people. Little Indian children are going to bed hungry!"

"Ha! You called them Indians instead of Native Americans!"

"These are different Indians."

"They aren't native?"

"No, they aren't American. No, wait. They are. Sort of. Native South Americans? No, that doesn't sound right. Nuts! This is going to bug me all day now."

Buffy laughter turned hysterical prompting a very disapproving head shake from Willow.

"Do you want me to teleport you to bed?" she offered.

"I can walk, I'm not that drunk. I mean I'm not drunk. At all."

"Sure, the three of me, we believe you, but the pinkish elephant has been voicing some concerns."

"I'm totally fine," Buffy got off the chair and gave her friend a hug. "Materialize safe, Will, and call me when you find something."

"Will do," the witch smiled back. She pulled her bag in close and sprinkled a bit of bright powder on herself and the luggage. A short incantation later she was in the middle of her living room half a world away. The beautiful view of Rio de Janeiro at sunset that greeted her through the large window contrasted greatly with not so beautiful view of two girls making out on the couch that greeted her as she turned around. She stepped towards them, completely forgetting that her bag has materialized in the same direction. The sound of the fall alerted the couple. Seeing the shocked face of her girlfriend, Kennedy rolled off Linda as the blond jumped to the floor and started frantically searching for her top. Willow stood up and staggered towards the door. "No," she thought, stopping abruptly. "I'm not sixteen anymore and I'm not going to run away to cry in a bathroom stall." She turned around and stepped forward.

"So what is this, Kennedy, teaching the students how to get 'a head' in this world?"

"Is that what you are mad about?" Kennedy moved towards Willow as well. "That it's one of the students?"

"What else? Am I supposed to be jealous of this dimwitted slut?"

"Hey!" objected Linda from the floor. "I'm right here!"

"You are sleeping with one our charges! Do I have to tell you how many levels of wrong that is?" Willow continued raving.

"First of all, I wasn't sleeping with her and second, who are you to lecture me on teaching ethics, you just called your student a dimwitted slut!"

"She knows she is a dimwitted slut!"

"I'm still here!" Linda shouted, still on all fours.

"And why are you still here?" snarled Willow.

"Uhm... well... Uhm.. I can't find my panties," mumbled Linda, looking up at the witch, a little frightened.

"You didn't have any panties," groaned Kennedy.

"Oh, right... He-he... Got to run now," said the skinny blond and flew out the door faster than a speeding bullet. Willow did not turn, her large dark eyes continued to stare Kennedy in the face as though trying to drill a hole in her forehead.

"Alright," said the redhead. "Now that the average IQ in this room went up forty points, are you going to give me an explanation of what's going on?"

"It wasn't serious," Kennedy sat back on the couch. "I just wanted... I don't know.."

"Wanted what? A fresh body? It certainly wasn't her conversation ability. Well? I'm really curious, what exactly does she have besides disproportionally large breasts?"

Kennedy looked up at Willow. Things that were so murky these past few months have suddenly became crisp and obvious.

"Nothing. She is as plain as a copper penny. That's what I needed. Someone who's very clear on the role I'm playing in her life, even if it is just sex."

"I have no idea what the heck that means, but you're not pinning this on me, missy!"

"What I mean, Willow, is that I'm tired of waiting for you to decide where to stick me in your busy schedule. I feel like an accessory here! Sure I was fun and exciting to play with in the beginning. And you needed me, still do, sometimes. To tell you how wonderful you are, how strong, how smart. You don't love me, never did. I'm just a crutch you used to get over Tara and.."

"Don't you bring her into this!" The witch grew more furious by the minute.

"You brought her into this!" Kennedy jumped up, gesturing wildly, her index finger practically poking Willow in the face. "She never left! I feel like there's three of us in this apartment all the time! So Tara was your first girlfriend, you loved her and she died. It's tragic, but it's the past. I'm here now and all you do is look at me with her eyes, comparing me to her, judging me. Well, I've had enough! It's over." She walked past her now ex-girlfriend to the door. For a brief moment Willow just stood there utterly confused.

"Wait a minute!" she turned around, "I catch you cheating and YOU break up with ME?"

"Quite an interesting turn of events, isn't it?" smirked Kennedy, "I'll sleep at the girl's dorm."

"Oh yeah... Well... Don't screw them all at once, leave something for tomorrow!" Willow shouted down the stairwell, but her comeback went unacknowledged. Whether she heard it or not Kennedy was gone. Willow slammed the door shut and walked back to the living room couch. She sat down and quickly jumped up: Kennedy and Linda were just making out on it. "I should disintegrate it," she thought, "or, maybe, donate it to charity." It's at that moment Willow realized that it wasn't the breakup that was upsetting her the most; it was still Kennedy's indiscretion. She felt cheated, not heartbroken. Like little bolts of lightening the thoughts shot through her mind. "Was Kennedy right? Was she nothing more than my rebound gal? What does that say about me? Why am I sitting on the stupid couch again?" She angrily jumped off once more and turned to the pile of stuffed stitched leather. Her mouth opened to utter the destructive spell, but no words came out. This won't help. Magic is never helpful. If she took a plane like a normal human being she wouldn't have caught Kennedy by surprise. Even now, magic denies her the comfort she desperately wants. "I told you so". Buffy would never say it, of course, but she will think it. Her connection to her best friend has become so strong that even over the phone the surface thoughts were as clear as the digitized vocals. She sat back down and gently petted the cushion. Abusing an innocent piece of fine furniture is definitely not the way to relieve her pain. There's a reason she left Rome. There's something out here worthy of her wrath.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Whatever it was, it was close. She has been tracking the trail of withered grass since yesterday evening. She has found three separate spell epicenters already and this is going to be the fourth. The dearth of sound was eerie. No birds, no animals, not even insects. The little six-legged critters were making their way back to the other sites, so their absence here meant she was getting much warmer. Willow floated onto the plateau. Three miles in diameter it was a top of a huge stone cylinder seemingly curved out of the mountain range. The rock faces were absolutely flat for almost the entire circumference save for the narrow connection to the rest of the range that housed a steep pathway probably broken in by livestock. Cutting across the field of tall yellowing grass dozens of tiny streams and brooks streaked and crisscrossed until finally merging towards the eastern edge to collapse as a large waterfall onto the valley thousands of feet bellow. The noise of the falling water and soft gasps of wind, normally so soothing, just seemed to accentuate the lack of any living sound. The witch sniffled uncomfortably. The whole place reeked of death. She thought about getting a bird's eye view of the plateau first, but it was hardly worth the effort since it only had one distinguishable feature, a small hill smack in the middle. Hovering slightly above the tips of the grass blades Willow pushed off with her left foot and slid in the direction of the hill. Right, then left, just as she skated in the Sunnydale arena with Buffy, only this time she wasn't falling every five feet despite moving five times as fast. At close range the hill seemed even less remarkable than from a distance, but completing her first circle around it, Willow realized that its base is square, with the sides about the same size as its height. "This can't be a natural formation," she thought. Suddenly she stomped with her right foot as hard as she could, turning roughly as she stopped on a dime. "Commonstrare!" she cried out. The hillside in front of her cracked and shattered like a mirror. The shards of the crushed glamor spell dissipated in the air revealing a large dark entrance into the depth of the earthy structure.

The long and narrow passage was slightly angled downward seemingly delving deep into the mountain. Actually it might not have been that long. The hillside containing the entrance was opposite the current position of the sun and the meagerness of light made the descent seem endless. Willow took out a handful of golden powder out of her pouch. "Sekhmet, Goddess, make my way," she whispered as she flung it into the air. The grains separated, and glowing ever brighter, rushed forward, lining up along the walls like tiny little floating torches. Stepping more confidently now Willow made her way further down the passage until it opened up into a large cave. There was another tunnel there going steeper into the mountain. This one was likely dug recently as wooden supports were propping up the ceiling. She looked behind her. The tunnel she walked was perfectly straight and she could still see the white spot of the entrance a little more than eight hundred feet away. They must have been waiting for her to turn her back. The Bringers poured out of the far tunnel to pounce on the unsuspecting witch. Willow didn't even bother facing them. Each one of the tiny torches floating along the walls rushed towards the attackers, incinerating itself and its target upon contact. For a minute it became so bright Willow had to shield her eyes. As the fires drew down the cave reverted to semi-darkness with only a handful of lights remaining.

"Bravo!" the echo carried the exclamation.

Willow took her hand off to see a large shape blocking the tunnel exit.

"Nice touch with the 'make' instead of 'light'. Torches and sentries for the price of one. You are here to see me, I presume."

Willow didn't answer but a slight wave of her hand sent the remaining lights towards the figure.

"I would love to see what you are made of, girl, but not here. I've got too much time invested in this dig, and while I'd like to think my design is good enough to withstand our upcoming ramble, I have little confidence in guys with no eyes building to spec." With that the shadow retreated into the light of the plateau.

"You don't really expect me to follow you," said Willow in a quiet voice meant more for herself than her opponent. A snap of her fingers and she materialized on top of the hill getting a good look at her enemy standing in wait about thirty feet outside the tunnel entrance. Remotely resembling a centaur, the Creature's skin was gray and smooth. Its lower body was about the size of a rhinoceros with four slightly longer legs with two claws on each hoof, and a long thick tail swirling about. The upper body had two sets of arms. Its head sitting on top of a long neck was human shaped only larger. The Creature's face was strangely familiar. The strange part was that there was no face. The front of the head was completely smooth like the rest of Its body. It had an almost watery appearance with tiny ripples running from top to bottom. Or, perhaps, it was just the way it reflected the sunlight. The entire concoction seemed so awkward, so unnatural, yet Willow could not shake the feeling that she has seen It before.

"Questions, comments?" asked the Creature finally getting bored of watching the witch watch It. Despite the distance between them and waterfall not far away, the Creature's voice carried perfectly without being a shout. Witty banter while slaying was Buffy's trademark, Willow never felt the need to humor her enemies, especially now.

"You'll pay for what you did to Dawn"

"Straight to revenge, then," nodded the Creature understandingly. "No wonder you were offered Anya's job. You would have made a great Vengeance Demon. You could have had a unique niche clientèle. You know, the one where they take personal abuse with good humor, but rip the skin of those who hurt the ones they love. That said, what happened didn't actually _hurt_ Dawn. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

"This will kill you."

The ball of fire flew out of her palm growing exponentially as it rushed towards its target. The Creature made no move to escape as the flames completely engulfed Its form. The column of fire burned ever hotter, rising almost a hundred feet tall, then swiftly came crushing down, breaking into hundreds of tiny orange streams radiating into the expanse of the plateau. The Creature stood unharmed, not even a singe on Its massive gray body.

"Wow, you totally barbecued that dead rabbit over there. Going redneck, are we?" the mouth made a brief appearance to form a derisive grin. It pushed off with Its hind legs, aiming the jump at Willow, but the witch was quick to react.

"Tar, thicken! " she shouted, suspending her enemy in mid-air.

"Shatter!" hissed the Creature and dropped to the ground a few meters from her. "Now that wasn't at all original," It smirked and pounced on the girl. Willow stood silently as the Creature clawed and punched at the defensive barrier.

"You are not just going to stand there, are you? I must say this is not the excitement I looked forward to. Come on, girl! Let's rock!"

"If you say so," said Willow letting go of a fifteen ton boulder she was positioning above Its head. The force of the impact took off a slice of the hill sending down a raging river of debris.

"This wasn't nearly as funny as you think it was," came from behind her. Willow turned to see the Creature dusting itself off, not a scratch on it. "You almost collapsed the excavation tunnels. I asked you nicely to please be careful." The end of the sentence was swallowed up by a powerful gust of wind that punched the Creature in the chest, knocking it back. It tried to move forward again, but the wind kept getting stronger. The currents seemed to flow around the witch, just slightly fluttering her long red hair, pressing with all their power against the Creature that dug in with all of its four hoofed legs trying to maintain Its position.

"Dodge this!" Willow shouted as a huge bolt of lightening struck the Creature in the head. The electric current swirled about Its body down Its neck, onto Its limbs, and right before it went into the ground a second bolt came down from the blackened sky. Again and again. The wind swirling about at hurricane speeds has formed a visible wall around the plateau rising up all the way to the storm clouds that have completely blocked out the sun. The ten square kilometer area around the hilltop has plunged into utter darkness with two figures, one small another enormous, briefly carved out of the void by periodic flashes of light. Finally the wind died down. The clouds dissipated, but the Creature stood just as it had, Its face sporting a deliberately bored expression.

"I think I'm supposed to say 'oh, that tickles!', only it didn't. Honestly, Willow, I didn't feel a thing. Are you sure you're trying hard enough? This is not High School P.E, you know, there's no doctor's note for slacking. And as a matter of record I did not teleport out of the way of that mudslide. I teleported from underneath so as not to get the dirt under my fingernails digging myself out. I mean, look at these babies," It extended all four of Its hands toward Willow. "I doubt there'd be more than two or three Korean manicurists in all of Brooklyn willing to take these on." Suddenly the Creature clapped Its hands. A giant fissure opened up right under Willow and a fountain of magma shot into the air. The girl fell backwards onto the ground, her hair and clothes slightly singed and two burn blisters popped on her left hand.

"Uh-oh. I don't think that protection spell is holding as well as it used to. Perhaps you shouldn't have expended so much energy."

Willow threw both of her hands forward sending the Creature flying into the air. The witch floated off the ground herself and darted forward pushing It across the plateau, then off the cliff into the waterfall and the lake below it. She hovered above the edge for a few minutes, her face contorting in strain as she tried to keep the Monster from rising to the surface. Suddenly a column of water erupted out of the lake knocking Willow back a good three hundred meters, all the way to the foot of the hill where the battle started. The crest of the giant wave lapped the burned grass gently bringing the Creature to the ground.

"Brrrrrrrrrr," It shook Its massive body the way so many dogs do. "You know, Willow, this daily bathing thing you Americans are so obsessed about is not for everyone. You are thorough though, I give you that. You tried all four elements. Got anything to show for it besides a nose bleed?"

"Everyone can be killed," said the witch hoarsely as she slowly caught her breath.

"True, but, ironic as it may be, it cannot be by your hand. You don't believe me. That's fine. Let's try a few more things, if you like. What was it that worked for your clique before? A big explosion? No, that's fire, we've covered that. Pulling out a uranium power core? Please, even if I had one, you can't even break the skin. Hitting me on the head with a magic troll hammer a couple dozen times? No, that baby's at Buffy's. Oh, I know! You can talk to me! Perhaps I don't really want to kill you. Perhaps all I need is a nice chat with a friend to get over my personal trauma!"

"What the..."

"What is that rusty sound? Oh, I think it's gears in your head finally turning! Come on, little hamster, you can do it! Spin that wheel!"

"Impossible..."

"You don't give yourself enough credit, Willow. Didn't your girlfriend used to say you can do anything? I don't mean that sex toy you have in Rio. I mean your real girlfriend, the one rotting away with a bullet hole in her chest."

"Shut up!" The fury of the witch's shriek seemed to shake the very mountain beneath her. Out of her outstretched hands escaped a river of pure destruction, vaporizing everything in its path, trees, rocks, even the air itself. This time the Creature didn't wait. It plunged two hands into the black stream that tried to swallow It and seemingly ripped it apart, breaking the spell and sending exhausted Willow collapsing onto her knees.

"You are right, " It spoke in a voice no longer mocking, but frighteningly menacing. "I talk a lot. Old habits die hard it seems. You are clearly too tired for me to drag this out much longer. Let it be finished." Its long tail coiled into a strike position above the girl's head and swiftly came crushing down. It sliced through the crouching figure and hit the ground hard. The broken apparition wavered for a second, then disappeared. The Creature growled in angry disappointment. The witch was too weak to cast instantaneous teleportation, so she covered her clumsy escape with glamor.

"I keep talking too much," It spoke to no one in particular. "Damn this villainous cliché! I just can't help it. It's even more fun when you can actually do what you say!"

"Is she gone?" A man emerged from the cave. He was dressed in a Coptic priest clothes with a large silver cross hanging around his neck just below his long silver beard. His head was covered by the traditional high black hat.

"Yes, o brave Fedocious," replied the Creature. "The blasphemous witch has fled. No doubt in anticipation of an awesome demonstration of valor on your part."

"I had to remain inside to make sure the tunnels are not collapsed by your battle."

"Sure you did."

"I fail to see the problem. The witch does not posses the power to harm you."

"No, but together we could have harmed her. Now she knows and lives. That means we are going to have visitors very soon."

"Should I summon more Brothers to protect the excavation?"

"No, bring forth more Harbingers. Dig up every square inch of these caves. The mausoleum is here, I can smell it!"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The sun was beginning to set. The rays, unfiltered by the curtains, were coloring the living room in an unfamiliar way. The overturned sofa and various bits, that at one point comprised two cocktail tables and a bar, completed the decor. Mortimer slowly got up from the floor, rubbing his sore shoulder.

"You really got this angry sex thing down, haven't you?" he said examining the carnage around him. He looked over to the Slayer. Buffy still lay on the floor, her nude body half covered by the torn off curtains. She seemed completely lost in her own thoughts, hearing and seeing nothing except the slight sway of the chandelier that her eyes were following as if hypnotized. He sat down next to her and slowly brushed her hair from her forehead.

"Something happened, didn't it? Can I help?"

"Leshii took Dawn," Buffy's voice was quiet, almost detached.

"My God," Mortimer jumped back up to his feet. "What does he want? The Scythe again?"

"No, it's not like that," Buffy continued calmly in the same horizontal position, just slightly lifting herself on her elbows. "She left with him. My sister is a Russian mobster."

"I'm so sorry," was all that came to his mind. Buffy was acting so strange he had no idea what she was expecting him to do. It's been a long time since a woman had him stumped like that and he was enjoying the thrill greatly.

"I'm not stupid," Buffy spoke suddenly irritated and sitting up. "I could tell she was suppressing. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. I thought I'd catch her stealing again, or sleeping with some asshole, or even doing coke in the bathroom! I was ready, but not for this! 'So your child is a mafia hit man.' That wasn't one of the brochures. In Italy, of all places, you'd think they'd have it."

"This might not be as bleak as you think," said Mortimer, getting a better handle on why Buffy was here. She didn't come to him looking for action. Dawn-related action that is. Whatever that's going to be, it's not happening soon. She needed comfort and having provided one kind of it already, he should try for the other kind as well. "The side trip to London she just took cannot be a coincidence. Dawn was trying to get more involved, that's what the Moscow trip was all about. Perhaps she's just took it a step further. An ill-advised step, certainly, but well-intentioned."

"That's what Giles thinks, " said Buffy laying back down.

"There you go."

"Oh, please, " up she went again. "You, men, with your retarded rational reasoning! She doesn't know what she's doing. What she thinks, what she says, it doesn't matter. Something broke inside her and she doesn't know how to fix it, so she's grasping. Anything, anybody. Except me. I wasn't there to save her that time and she doesn't trust me anymore. I doubt she trusts him either, she probably feels she has no choice."

"You are being too hard on yourself. From what I know I don't see anything..."

"I'm not basing this on anything," she interrupted impatiently. "Call it a parent's instinct."

So much for providing the other kind of comfort. Over the centuries Mortimer has learned the value of silence and the situation clearly called for it. He put his arm around the Slayer and gently guided Buffy's head to his shoulder.

"Do you think it's possible he works with the First?" she spoke again after a long pause.

"Leshii?"

"He's strong. Not Caleb strong, but much stronger than a human should be."

"No, that's different," Mortimer mumbled adjusting her hair. "It has nothing to do with the First."

Buffy pulled her head away. For a while there she had forgotten who she was with. She pulled the curtain covering herself.

"Go on," she said with a stern look.

"To tell the truth, it's only a theory, and I hate to give uncollaborated information," Mortimer replied slyly as they drifted into familiar patterns.

"Just spill it already!"

"Back to angry sex, are we?"

Buffy chuckled, giving him a friendly shove.

"Talk now."

"Alright, alright. About a hundred fifty years ago," he began as he got up and started gathering Buffy's clothes, "there was this doctor named Povane. Actually, he wasn't so much a doctor as a sadist who kept really good notes. Really good evil notes. A few pages and you quickly understand why the Senior Partners used his blood to consecrate Wolfram&Hart's Los Angeles office. A good deal of these notes was devoted to his study of people's adaptation to extreme pain. He found children in early puberty acquired a greatly increased tolerance over time and, in rare cases, a prolonged and steady exposure seemed to create a permanent change."

"Adrenalin," Buffy nodded. "It dulls the pain, but also increases strength. You think Leshii is on a permanent high."

"To be sure no one has ever got a urine sample from him," Mortimer continued, giving Buffy a surprised look. Apparently three semesters of college go a long way in California. "However, it's a well known fact that he has been tortured by 3M for over three weeks."

"Who?"

"3M. Moscow Mummifying Maniac. Not the Post-it maker."

"Right. But it can't last that long, the adrenalin fix," she grabbed her pants out of the pile the Immortal handed her. "There was this military program and this friend of mine..," she pulled them on both legs at once.

"Boyfriend of yours, agent Riley Finn," Mortimer interjected.

"Of course you would know that. Creepy, but not unexpected. Anyway, he almost died from that implant that increased his adrenalin production."

"Perhaps because Leshii's body chemistry was altered naturally, relatively speaking, his tolerance is greater. There's really no way for us to know," Mortimer shrugged.

"Maybe he'll keel over tomorrow and Dawn will come home," she sighed hopefully.

"I'll drink to that. How about it? I got rum and tequila."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was Dawn's first time in a private jet. Giles, who has raked in an untold number of hours on every imaginable airline, had sparred with Willow a number of times over getting one for the Council. The disagreement was not so much about the money as the environmental impact. "Teleportation is the safest, cheapest, and cleanest way to travel," she would say, "If you have to use a planet killing, people crashing machine, go with professionals." The last word was always left to Buffy, and her sister would invariably nix the idea for fear of loosing an excuse to keep her travel to a minimum. Leshii's plane was not particularly posh. It was divided into two cabins. The small one, apparently for private use, was empty now as Leshii sat with Dawn and Zemfira in a small booth next to the entrance. The rest of the gang, eight in number, took up two larger booths. The tables were filled with cards and liquor even before the plane took off. Their table was boringly empty. Dawn kept trying to think of a conversation topic, but her thoughts were consistently thrown into disarray by the strange, malignant stare Zemfira was giving her for the last half hour. Finally, she couldn't stand it anymore.

"What? What did I do?"

The vampire responded with a contemptuous snort.

"You made her confront the Slayer. It's about time you got over your phobia," said Leshii without looking at either of the women he addressed.

"I'm not afraid of the Slayer," Zemfira answered even more indignant. "She's just a bad omen."

"Yes," Dawn smiled, "I heard something about vampires meeting Vampire Slayers and then ending up staked immediately after, but I'm sure it's just a coincidence."

"You are just so funny."

"I think I am"

"For your information," Zemfira was growing impatient, "Every Slayer I've met before has ended up dead!"

"Well, duh! You are what, three hundred?"

As the few of the gangsters who understood English cracked up loudly in the booth behind her Zemfira lost it completely. She grabbed Dawn by the collar and pulled her across the table to within an inch of her vamped out face.

"That's right!" she growled. "I'm a two hundred and eighty six year old vampire, not some little girl here for your teasing amusement!" She dropped her face first on the table and scattered into an empty booth on the other side of the plane.

"Great job," Dawn mumbled to herself. "Make an enemy you first day, why don't you." Zemfira was right. Her childish appearance made it too easy to forget what a powerful and dangerous creature she was. She looked over to Leshii who continued staring in the heavily tinted window completely uninterested by the commotion around him.

"I'll go talk to her," said Dawn and getting no reaction, stood up and walked over to the sulking vampire.

"I'm sorry," she said lightly touching the little girl's shoulder. "I didn't mean to make fun of your concerns." Interpreting lack of punching as a sign of encouragement, Dawn sat down next to her.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

The question was greeted by a familiar snort.

"So now you want to share?"

"I didn't mean to be a spaz," Dawn continued her patching work, "I like you. You were all nice to me in Rome. Didn't feed off me or anything."

"Orders," Zemfira's voice was still grumpy, but she was clearly coming around. "If Leshii noticed bite marks on you I'd be in so much shit."

"I was already bloody all over, you didn't need to bite. You bathed and bandaged me. That was very nice of you."

"To be perfectly honest, I did lick you a little when you were unconscious. The hands! Just the hands, I swear," Zemfira added quickly seeing Dawn's eyes bulge out. "You taste strange. Very powerful, but not like a witch."

"My sister's a Slayer. Must be something genetic," said Dawn not sure herself if this was a lie or not. Was it really the Key the vampire sensed?

"So that's what a Slayer tastes like, " said Zemfira taking the explanation at face value, "I see the attraction."

"I thought you said you killed a few?"

"One. A hex from fifty miles away. I thought it'd be safer that way. It wasn't."

"So what happened?"

The little vampire sighed. Looking at her pouting face Dawn imagined she looked very much similar when her mom asked her how her first day at Sunnydale Junior High went. Of course her travails began with accidentally pushing the most popular girl in class into a freshly painted wall, not killing a Slayer.

"Her Watcher, that's what happened," Zemfira began reluctantly. "They couldn't give her the usual polite English chap in the middle of the World War, so the Turkish twat lucked out with a beylerbey of Antioch."

"I see. Ottoman nobility does tend to take things personally."

"We weren't afraid of the beylerbey. Our coven was so powerful we could have taken on the Sultan if we had to. Only the bastard wasn't stupid. He realized that we can always get to him before he gets to us, so he willed all his fortune to the order Taraka. For the uninformed it's..."

"An assassins guild," Dawn finished the sentence for her. "So they had even more powerful witches?"

"No," answered Zemfira giving her a semi-respectful glance. "Witch hunters."

"Which I assume are more than just people hunting witches." She started out well with the whole Order of Taraka knowledge and she thought putting her question in this manner would make her appear less ignorant. She was wrong.

"Do you even know how magic works?" said Zemfira trying to cram as much condescension as could possibly fit in a seven word sentence.

"That's a trick question. Nobody knows how magic works, otherwise it would have been science," Dawn responded not taking anything lying down.

"You're such a nerd," Zemfira rolled her eyes.

The standard High School come back proved surprisingly effective. Satisfied she had finally shut the pesky teenager up, the vampire child continued in a measured, superior tone.

"Okay, here's an example that will work for you. It's like this Internet thing. A gigantic network of power. Some are connected better, some worse. With a better one you can send out lot, but you can receive a lot, too."

"Why 'but'? It's 'and'."

"It's a metaphor, dummy, remember? With magic you want the traffic just one way. Most of the time"

"So witch hunters are like hackers?"

"No, they are the backward dolts who aren't plugged in at all."

"Magic immunity," Dawn nodded understandingly. "Cool. How do you get that?"

"You're born that way. Everybody's level of reception is predetermined. You can learn spells and you can practice, but your limits are set at birth."

"But you can cast spell on object around them, can't you?"

Zemfira made an uncertain wavy gesture with her left hand.

"Not really. Nothing with immediate contact. Can't take away their clothes or their weapons, or open a chasm right under their feet. I can float a boulder above their head and let go. At the time it hits, the gravity is the one doing the work, so it's fine."

"Still sounds like you got the better deal."

"You don't get it!" Zemfira slapped both hands on the booth table. "It's not about the actual fight; it's trying to make it there! See, you can't cast a locator spell for witch hunters, can't mind sweep," the vampire's little hands were flying all over the place as she gesticulated wildly. "They walk through any barrier, or force field! They trigger no alarms. Can't hide easily either, they ignore all illusions, see right through glamor. And that's important because they know who they are looking for and you don't. Take witchcraft from a witch, all you are left with is a normal person. Pretty easy killing one of those"

"And yet you survived. Good for you," said Dawn as honestly and supportive as she could. A little suck up here and there can go a long way.

"Survived is the operative word here. Not lived, survived. The only one of our coven. Crawling through sewers for eighty years, feeding off rats and stray dogs. Until finally, my ship came in," she smiled widely in Leshii direction.

"Leshii took care of your problem."

"Wiped out all seven clans to the last infant."

"Infant?"

"Magic predisposition is hereditary. Doesn't mean your kids will be immune if you are, but it's a lot more likely, and higher than usual level of resistance is pretty much guaranteed. So witch hunters join the Assassin's Order in bunches. Murdering warlocks as a family. Very wholesome"

"And Leshii just killed them all?" Why should this shock her? She read his file. Still, she didn't like hearing this.

"He likes to say that it was natural selection. Rapid extinction caused by narrow specialization. Unlike me they couldn't adapt to being the hunted," Zemfira giggled not noticing the creeping sourness in Dawn's voice.

"How clever"

"I'm going to get some blood from the kitchen. You want ice or no ice?"

"Ice. And no blood! Fanta. Fanta with ice and two sugars."

As soon as Zemfira disappeared into the back of the plane, Dawn quickly returned to her original sit across from Leshii. The gangster was sitting in the same pose she left him over twenty minutes ago, staring blankly out the window.

"Hi," she said somewhat loudly to get his attention. "Don't mean to interrupt, but as a member of this fine organization I feel obligated to point out a possible problem that you might not be aware of."

That got his attention.

"You found a problem I'm not aware of?"

Dawn wasn't sure if the slight sprinkle of sarcasm she felt in his tone was actually there or simply expected.

"It happens to be in an area I'm sure I know a lot more than you do. So, yes. You know those witch hunters you exterminated for Zemfira?" she almost whispered now mindful of a vampire's exceptional hearing. "You didn't kill all of them, did you? Because that would be bad."

"Why would that be bad?"

"Because," she leaned in closer, lowering her voice even more. "I'm not a big believer in vampire loyalty or gratitude. Without an outside threat, sooner or later, she'll turn on you. It doesn't matter how much you helped her before."

"I don't need witch hunters to keep Zemfira in line," The normal volume of his voice indicated Leshii meant what he said.

"You are a real bad ass with guns, there's no argument. Only this is magic, another subject I feel I'll need to consult a lot on. A witch as powerful as Zemfira isn't threatened by any kind of weapons you are used to."

"She's threatened by me."

"You?" Dawn bristled. "What can you do to her?"

"A lot more than she can do to me."

Now she gets it.

"You are one of those midi-chlorian deficients, aren't you? It's a Star Wars reference," she added as she got no reaction to her joke. "Star Wars? It's a movie? Six of them actually. Well, five so far. Well, six, if you count that horrible Christmas special."

"You're overdoing it," Leshii cut off her babbling.

"I know. I'm really nervous. Just trying to fit in"

"No, you're not," Leshii turned back to the window. "If you were trying to fit in you'd choose a sit with the men. Sitting here makes you stand out. It's fine. If you were really here to spy on me you wouldn't make it this obvious. Which begs the question why are you here?"

That was probably a rhetorical question, but she answered it anyway.

"You were there, you heard what I said."

"I heard. Doesn't mean I believed. Doesn't mean she believed either."

"Whatever. If you want to be paranoid that's your prerogative, but as long as we are speaking of believing, I don't believe there's an ocean in between Italy and Ukraine."

"There's been a change of plans."

"No kidding. So, where are we heading now?"

Leshii paused seemingly calculating how much he should say.

"We'll be going to South America first."

"Why, do you need to pick up some coke?" Dawn noticed his hesitation and tried to liven things up a little.

"We don't trade in drugs."

"I know, I was joking again," she sighed, frustrated. Apparently direct is the way to go. "So why are we going there?"

Silence

"What, you are not going to tell me?"

"No."

Wherever they were going, it was important, more important than Kiev. Lighthearted humor is clearly not Leshii's thing. Perhaps some logical reasoning will work here. It did get her inside.

"I came here to work for you. I can't do that if you are not going to tell me what I'm supposed to do," she took a stab in that direction.

"Here's something you can do, don't talk to me for the rest of the flight."

Dawn wanted to say something else, but that particular shade of blankness on Leshii's face told her she better not. She sat there silently, unsure of what to do next. When she saw Zemfira coming from the kitchen with two glasses she walked back to her booth.

"Told you to get lost, didn't he?" she said with a wry smile.

"I don't get it," Dawn suckled on the Fanta straw. "I'm really good at chit-chat. That's what everyone likes the most about me."

"He's Leshii. He doesn't do chit-chat."

"What does he do?"

"He tortures and kills people. That's what everyone likes the most about him."

Dawn set down her glass and leaned back in her chair. This is going to be a long flight.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

The truck was slowly making its way up the trail. They've been bouncing up and down on their seats for over four hours and if Willow wasn't so absorbed in her thoughts she would have thrown up at least twice by now. There were three of them in the cabin. Naturally, she had to be there to show the way, and, as the irony would have it, Linda was the only one with the skills to drive a flatbed up the mountain roads. Where could an overprivileged Buenos Aires nightclub rat, like her, learn that? Plain as a copper penny. Ha! Of course, penny has been mostly zinc since 1982. A lot does Kennedy know.

Kennedy was the third person inside. Situated between her new girlfriend and her ex, she felt about as comfortable as the eleven slayers riding in the back combined. She has been trying the entire trip to get her nerve up to start a conversation, but the glare in the witch's eyes has burned every inane topic out of her mind. Judging by the way Willow started to shift anxiously in her seat, they were getting close. Time to say something was running out so Kennedy bit the bullet and started with the first thing that popped into her head.

"Are you doing alright?" she asked marveling herself at the degree of lameness of that question. The look from Willow clearly seconded that opinion. "You don't seem okay. I don't know, it's just..."

"In the last thirty or so hours I caught my girlfriend cheating, I got my ass handed to me by some frankencamel, and I have slept for a total of an hour and a half! No, Kennedy, I'm not okay!"

"What I meant is you seem concerned. Are you sure you have recovered enough? The expedition seems rushed. Maybe we should break camp somewhere, go after It in the morning. You'll get your sleep and…"

"It might not be there in the morning!" Willow shouted. "I'm fine," she continued much calmer. "That's why we're driving up here instead of teleporting. To save my strength and give me additional recovery time. Nothing is being rushed, we have a good plan."

"Yes," Kennedy nodded. "You'll cast a binding spell that will paralyze It and prevent It from doing magic. Then, all I have to do is chop up the defenseless little beasty."

"That's right."

"So why did you insist on bringing the entire special ops team along?"

"Just in case, " Willow replied keeping her eyes deliberately on the road ahead.

"In case your spell doesn't work or in case you've figured it wrong and It can't be killed by a slayer either?"

"Let's just say that as much as I want you dead right now I don't want you to get hurt, alright?"

"Alright," said Kennedy not sure if she wanted to continue. So far her effort has been in vain. The tension did not dissipate. If anything it was turning into misgivings.

"Why would It be vulnerable to just slayers anyway?" Linda joined in. This four hour ride was probably the longest time she has ever gone without saying something and even this poorly going conversation was welcome.

"It's complicated," Willow replied grudgingly not sharing her enthusiasm, "I don't have time to explain. Especially to you. And I told you to speak Portuguese to me."

"You were just speaking English!"

"It was a private conversation. You were talking shop, and you know the rule, everyone speaks the language of the host country."

"Well, it's a stupid rule! Almost everyone in the club speaks Spanish. Why can't Brazilian girls just learn that?"

"Because our office is in Rio, not Buenos Aires! Paris of South America, my tiny butt! There's more to being European than being snooty and closed-minded."

Kennedy was straining her mind trying to quickly diffuse the escalating fight, when Linda's imperfect English skills provided the necessary respite.

"I'm not snooty!" she shouted back at Willow, "And I'm very open and not minded at all!

The witch bursting into laughter was not the reaction she expected.

"What? What did I say?" she turned to Kennedy who covered her face with her hands in utter embarrassment.

"You're awesome, Linda," said Willow calming down. "A quality laugh is exactly what I needed right now. We're here," she added suddenly grim.

Linda parked the truck about a hundred feet from the hill. Sunsets are quick in the mountains and the plateau was almost completely shrouded in darkness. The girls disembarked. Those with one handed weapons grabbed flashlights and the slayers loosely lined themselves up for a quick inspection. Kennedy disbursed a few pats and pep phrases across her team, but her eyes were kept on Willow as she put the finishing touches to her spell mixture.

"Are we all set there?" She asked carefully applying the resulting lotion to her slightly trembling left hand.

"We are ready, " Kennedy plainly answered.

"Keep behind me, then."

Willow stepped into the tunnel for the second time. The slayers followed in a two by two formation.

"Did I say something stupid again? In the car?" Linda whispered pitifully to Kennedy. "I always say something stupid."

"It's alright. It's Willow. She can make anyone feel stupid if she wants to."

"She used to make me feel smart. I've been learning things from her. That never happened to me in school before. How long is she going to stay mad?"

"Inside, probably for a while. As far as picking on you, Willow is too nice to keep it up for long. Killing this Thing should help. There's something about It that got her riled."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As they entered the cave, Kennedy, Linda, and Marisol moved in front of Willow who was already whispering the initial part of the incantation. The witch didn't want to waste her strength on a sentry spell and the slayers would take of care of another Bringer ambush. The flashlights went on. The Creature was there alone. Laying in front of the excavation tunnel It seemed to be asleep.

"Defixium acuro!" Willow shouted the end of the spell.

"Mirror, " answered the Creature lazily. The air around It wobbled and Willow collapsed to the ground. Her body began to seize and her mouth jerked as she gasped for air.

"Willow!" Kennedy cried out. She dropped her weapon and grabbed the girl trying to stop her convulsions.

The Creature stood up and started to walk leisurely towards the witch. Its head was now sporting a full face. Androgynous, almost angelic, it was marred by a most hideous grin. Willow has stopped seizing and was now completely limp in her ex-girlfriend's arms, her breathing barely audible.

"Pull her head back, Kennedy, " the Creature spoke. "Or she'll choke on her own saliva. I have to hand it to you, Willow, there's no way I could conjure up a binding spell this powerful. Goodness, even your throat muscles are paralyzed. Not enough for you to bind my magic abilities, you extended the paralysis factor to take away the very power of speech. No way to even try a counter spell. Always so thorough. You have covered every facet of the spell to perfection. Except for being a victim of it. So, ladies, what's plan B?"

"Fire!" was the answer. Six crossbows went off sending their missiles on Kennedy's command just as she jammed her spear into the Creature's upper body taking her best guess on where the heart would be. The blade did not penetrate the skin, but the force of the impact snapped the staff in the slayer's hands. The grin never left the Creature's face as the arrows bounced off Its body just as harmlessly as the spear. A swift sweep of Its two right arms send still stunned Kennedy flying into the wall opposite to the cave entrance.

"Good guess with the slayers," It addressed Willow again, "Close, but no cake. I'll go on a limb now and say you don't have a plan C." The slayers were still in formation, but it was more a display of inertia than steadfastness. There indeed was no plan C, but there was an opening. Despite a clear advantage the Creature would not attack. It seemed to obsessively concentrate on degrading their paralyzed professor, as though the rest of them weren't even worth killing. They could run, but that meant leaving behind Willow and Kennedy, who has just started coming to after being thrown head first into the wall.

"Marisol? " Isidore whispered, lightly elbowing the teacher's assistant to get her attention.

"What?" the startled girl replied, as the answer dawned on her: she's the most senior person left. "Retreat. Get Willow and Kennedy, then retreat," she added quickly. "We need a distraction."

"Distraction coming right up," said Isidore, dropped her axe and ran straight into the Creature. Perhaps still caught up in Its harassment of the fallen witch, It made no move until the slayer jumped on Its back and landed a hard punch to the base of the neck. Taking a few steps back It started spinning and reaching with all four of Its arms trying to dislodge the enemy laying a beating to Its spine. The plan seemed to be working. Willow was already in Linda's arms, and Luisa has almost made her way to Kennedy. The Creature's tail has now joined in the attack on Isidore. Realizing she would not be able to continue dodging for much longer, she jumped off, but her jump was mistimed. Concentrating too much on avoiding the hands Isidore didn't pay much attention the speed of the spin and though back on the ground, she was now trapped between the wall of the cave and her Enemy. Quickly running out of options she pulled out a dagger and jumped as high as she could. Squeezing her knees around the Creature's neck she jammed the dagger straight into the eye with all her strength. With a loud clank the blade bounced off as though from a steel wall. The force of the impact twisted the slayer's wrist making her drop the weapon.

"Impressive, isn't it?" cackled the Creature as It grabbed the girl's legs with Its upper arms and pulled, ripping the left at the waste. It threw the lifeless body to the ground and proceeded to stuff the leg into it's grossly stretched out jaw as the slayers cried out in shock and anger.

"Hunger is an amazing thing," the Creature spoke to Willow as the silhouette of its horrific meal traveled down Its long neck. "I've been eating practically non-stop all this time and yet I can never seem to get my fill. Oh, don't look so scared, my little ingberlach1, I'm leaving you for dessert." With that It rushed at the slayers.

"Retreat, retreat!" Kennedy shouted, grimacing in pain, as Luisa was helping her to her feet.

"What do you mean, 'retreat'?" the Creature roared angrily. "I just said I was hungry, doesn't anybody listen?" It thrust Its hand forward. The red lightning momentarily danced between Its digits, then escaped from the tip of the middle claw towards the cave entrance just as one of the slayers was about to ran through it. She hit her head hard on the invisible barrier and tumbled down the narrow passage. The girl behind her began to frantically punch and kick at the force field as the other slayers stopped in their tracks, looking lost and mortified. The Creature didn't move either. Its gaze kept jumping from one girl to the next, looking them up and down intently. The entire cave filled to the brim with frightful silence only broken by barely audible whimpering coming from Isidore as the last of life trickled out of her mutilated body.

"Oh, the dilemma that Americans face every Thanksgiving. What do you think, Willow, dark meat or white meat?"

"Luisa," Kennedy tapped the shoulder of the curly haired seventeen year old. "Get ready."

"To do what?" the girl stuttered, "Our weapons are useless!"

"Maybe, but we aren't." In two quick jumps Kennedy covered the distance between her and the Creature and, grabbing with both hands, pulled one of Its hind legs from under It. The surprise of the assault more than the lost footing caused the Creature to loose Its balance and fall on Its side.

"Everybody, pin It!" Kennedy shouted. "Limb by limb!"

The slayers piled on.

"Oh, I know this game!" The Creature laughed, writhing under the heap of bodies. "Left foot green, Kennedy, right hand yellow!"

With hideous hollering It twisted Its neck and ripped into Luisa's shoulder with Its teeth. The girl cried out in pain and let go of the bottom right arm, but another slayer quickly took her place.

"Bitch!" cried Linda locking her legs around the Creature's neck. She grabbed the huge head and pressed the top against her chest, jamming the jaw shut with her hands.

"Marisol!" Kennedy shouted. "Don't just stand there, grab the axe and work the wall! The force field ends at the edge!" She looked over to Luisa who sat on the ground white as a ghost. Her eyes and lips were shut tightly as she pressed her hand hard on her wound to slow the bleeding.

"It's going to be okay," Kennedy said softly, "You just hold on."

The girl opened her eyes and a pained grin spread across her face.

"It's going to be okay if you just hold on," she muttered in between the quick, wheezing breaths.

"So, what's the plan?" asking Linda looking hopefully towards the exit where Marisol and Elvera were hacking feverishly at the stone. "Once they are done we let go and run for it?"

"Nobody's running!" barked Kennedy. "There's satellite phone in the truck. We're bringing in Lucha, and Tamara, and every damn witch and warlock in this hemisphere! This Thing killed Isidore and I plan to go mesoamerican on Its ass!"

Ten hours passed. Or was it ten minutes? Linda tried keeping time by the hammering of Marisol's axe, but she quickly lost count.

"It's getting cold, " a slayer holding the bottom right hand finally broke the silence.

"It's like a dessert here, " answered Kennedy very supportive of the distracting small talk idea. "As soon as the sun goes down, it gets really cold, really fast."

"No! This Thing, It's freezing!" The girl was starting to get panicky.

Kennedy felt it, too. The Creature's entire body was growing colder by the second. The slayers started to feel their muscles seize.

"Don't let go!" Kennedy yelled, "Don't let go!" It was no use. Whatever their will, the laws of physics have prevailed and the Creature tore Its limbs out of the weakening grip of Its captors. The pile up began anew, but this time surprise wasn't on their side. Moreover, their enemy was no longer satisfied with showing off Its invulnerability, It wished to display the full strength and speed of Its massive form. The fight lasted only a few minutes. Three minutes filled with sound of crunching bones. The site of blood simmering in the beam of a dropped flashlight. As the slayer attack fizzled the Creature galloped towards the exit where Elvera was almost through the hole. Pushing Marisol into the wall with one hand It grabbed the escaping slayer by her feet with another two and pulled her back in. Grabbing her upper body with the other two arms It bit into the girl's midsection ripping her in half. The fountain of blood gushed in all directions covering the walls, the ceiling, and Marisol who went completely limb from either the concussion or the horror unfolding before her eyes. The Creature grabbed her and threw her down the passage, satisfied with letting her simply roll towards her comrades.

"Enough with the appetizers, " It spoke leisurely walking towards the slayers. "It's time for a real dish. Something that still has a functioning brain." It picked up an abandoned spear from the cave floor. "Kennedy kabob! Sounds delicious, don't you think? Come on out, girl. I'm going to stick this in you and eat you. I know what you think, Willow," A few of the flashlights scattered about were still on, providing just enough light to make out a cruel smirk taking up a good half of the canvas of the Creature's face. "She likes it in the other order, but, hey, today is the day for experimenting!"

"Linda," Kennedy quietly addressed the disheveled girl next to her. "Take Willow and head down that passage," she pointed to the excavation tunnel, "As far down as you can. Just hide. We might be able to buy enough time for the binding spell to wear out."

"Kennedy..."

"Do as I say," she cut her off. As the Creature came closer, the slayers instinctively backed to the far wall. Kennedy stood pat, automatically coming one on one with her enemy. She walked over to pick up Linda's mace, one of over a dozen slayer weapons now littering the cave. The Creature made no move to stop her. It seemed to derive a lot more pleasure from the fear and despair of Its prey than from an actual kill, and so was more than willing to prolong the experience, especially since the outcome was not in doubt. Suddenly Its face contorted in a grimace of disappointment.

"Damn it to hell," It groaned turning towards the exit passage. A large energy ball came out of nowhere, splattering against the Creature's chest. The splatter, morphed into ropes that snaked across every part of Its body, binding Its limbs. Through Its angry roar came the sound of people running in from the outside. Spot lights tore through the semi darkness, blinding the slayers. After a minute of struggle the Creature finally gained an upper hand, tearing through the animated binds and throwing them towards the lights. Dropping to the ground the pile morphed into what looked like a little girl. As her eyes were beginning to adjust Kennedy was able to make out the silhouettes of half a dozen or so men running into the cave. The Creature made a sweeping motion with Its hand in their directions. The invisible force dropped them to the ground except for one propping himself with a cane. With his other hand he raised what appeared to be short two-barrel rifle and fired. The shotgun shells crushed against their target releasing dozens of green glowing pellets. For a second they seem to barrow beneath the skin and then expelled. The Creature's roar grew louder, as It grimaced and staggered in obvious pain. The rest of attackers were back on their feet. The cripple barked out an order in an unknown language and the men unleashed a hail of bullets from their weapons. Most of the fire was aimed high, but Kennedy saw one or two stray bullets hit her girls.

"Down, down!" Kennedy tried yelling over the noise and motioning with her hands, "On the ground! Move to me!"

The Creature writhed in agony as more and more oddly glowing bullets made the prolonged contact with Its skin. The fire grew denser and more indiscriminate as a short fat man with a machine gun joined the fray.

"Whoever can walk, grab someone who can't, and go! Go!" Kennedy's voice has already turned hoarse, but she kept squeezing the last juices out of her vocal chords. "Linda, grab Luisa, I got Willow. Marisol, keep it low! Everyone, low to the ground and move it!" The slayers ran past the shooters who paid no attention to them. Their firing has turned strategic as the Creature seemingly weakened and disoriented was being maneuvered into a corner. The little girl that attacked It earlier was now unwrapping green glowing blades meant for close combat. "Kill weapons," thought Kennedy. For a moment she paused at the cave's exit, then changed her mind. This battle was over and it wasn't even her battle anymore. Her fight, still ahead, was for the lives of her wounded girls. She turned and ran after the rest of the slayers. Her head resting on Kennedy's shoulder, barely conscious Willow was the only one of them who saw the Creature snap Its fingers and disappear into the smoke of a blue teleportation aura.

1A small cake traditionally served by European Jews


	5. Chapter 5: The Way We Aren't

**Chapter 5: The Way We Aren't**

Kennedy ran out of the cave with Willow in her arms. Still seeing spots from the lights inside she was blinded again by the beams directed at the cave entrance. She stopped just a few meters outside trying to get her bearings through the deafening noise, the lights, and the dust coming from helicopters around her.

"Kennedy, over here!" shouted a familiar voice. Dawn grabbed her arm and dragged her towards one of the helicopters. The other slayers followed.

"Where's Buffy?" Kennedy yelled over the engine noise.

"No Buffy. We're not with the Council," Dawn yelled back. "What's wrong with Willow?"

"A spell of some kind. Who are these people?"

"Later," Dawn brushed her question off, opening the door to the cabin.

"What are you doing?" the pilot yelled.

"You'll need to fly them back to town," Dawn shouted, helping other wounded inside.

"On whose authority?"

"How about my fist?" said Kennedy putting the mentioned implement in front of his face.

"Leshii is scarier," the pilot answered, obviously frightened, but not nearly enough.

"I order you to fly them!" Dawn jumped into the cabin herself.

"I never saw you before today!"

"If you don't lift off right now, she'll be the last thing you see!" Kennedy grabbed the man by the collar nearly pulling him out of his seat.

"If you kill me you won't fly anywhere, and I'm not flying until I get clearance!"

"You have clearance," came a metallic voice from outside the chopper. Dawn looked over to see a tall man in a full ski mask. His voice was clearly altered by some kind of electronic device, but apparently the pilot knew who it was.

"Fine, fine!" he yelled. "But not all of you. At night, in this wind, I can only take five, six at most."

"There two more helicopters, right?" Kennedy turned to Dawn.

"You only get one," said the masked man before she could respond.

"It's alright, Kennedy," said Dawn. "Just take the critical ones. I'll take care of the rest, I promise."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dawn watched as the helicopter disappeared into the night, then walked over to the remaining slayers. The girls were a sad state. Their clothes were torn up and covered in blood, either theirs or their friends. One by one they seated themselves on the ground in random and silent arrangement. For a few minutes Dawn just stared at them unsure of what to do next. The defeated look in their eyes was driving her decisiveness to naught.

"There are blankets and food in my helicopter"

Dawn turned around to see the masked man standing behind her again. They picked him and a few other men that looked local from the city. He wasn't wearing a mask then, but she only saw him briefly with his back turned.

"Thanks," she said and ran towards the machine he was pointing at. "Aren't you going to help me?" The man did not answer. Through the pile of blankets and thermoses she was carrying back Dawn saw him walk over to his associates who were now brandishing picks, shovels, and other digging instruments. What kind of screwed up rescue mission is this? As she was covering the slayers in wool and pouring little cups of coffee, she saw a group of armed men exiting the cave, laughing and patting each other on various body parts.

"Hey, International Man of Mystery," shouted the short fat man with a machine gun on his shoulder, "Go do your thing!" The men bringing up the rear were carrying what was left of the two fallen slayers. Dawn waved them in.

"Set them here," she said laying down one of the left over blankets. The gangsters looked over to the fat man who shrugged indifferently. Having no need for the body parts themselves they laid them down where Dawn told them to. Dawn quickly covered them up somewhat surprised by the lack of spontaneous vomiting on her part. Her confidence was slowly returning to her and it was time to full charge of the situation.

"Who is the senior person here?" she addressed the slayers. Getting absolutely no reaction she quickly realized her problem. South America means Spanish and Portuguese. "'Take French, Dawn, it'll make you feel smart'," she mentally mocked her sister. "Yep, that's exactly how I feel right now."

"Quen es la asistente de la profesora?" she began uncertainty, trying to piece together whatever Spanish she could remember from watching soccer on Univision. "El presidente de la classe? Girl scout leader? Anyone? Hableme!"

"She's Kennedy's aid," Linda answered in English pointing to Marisol.

Dawn walked over to the girl who was sitting on the left end of the slayer semicircle. Getting no reaction to the slight shoulder tap, she pulled back the blanket covering the slayer's head. Her hair and the entire left side of her face of covered in blood which made Dawn realize that the red top Marisol was wearing didn't start out that way.

"Jesus. Pienso esta sangre no es tuyo, verdad1?"

The slayer's lips were moving ever so slightly and Dawn thought she could discern a barely audible prayer repeated over and over.

"Chica? Hola? Well, she's a goner," Dawn stood up and walked back to Linda. "You, what's your name?"

"Linda."

"Linda, you are in charge."

"I can't be in charge," Linda responded a bit scared.

"Says who?"

"Pretty much everyone"

"Well, I say you are in charge," Dawn said sternly and louder.

"Okay," the girl responded sheepishly. "Who are you?"

"I'm Dawn. Buffy's sister," she added quickly realizing her initial response meant absolutely nothing. "You do know Buffy?"

"Yes."

"Okay then. Did you get here in that truck?" she pointed to the vehicle standing a few dozen feet from them.

Linda nodded

"Is anyone of these catatonics capable of driving it back?"

"No."

"Damn it! Why didn't Kennedy tell me the driver was with her?"

"Because she wasn't"

Dawn bit back her lip fighting the urge to choke the girl in front of her.

"Are you the driver?"

Linda nodded.

"Good. Now we're getting somewhere, albeit very slowly. Let's get your friends, put them in the truck. Then you can drive them back to town. Willow and the others will be at the hospital. I don't think there are many hospitals there, so you shouldn't have any problems finding them," she grabbed the girl by both hands and forcefully pulled her to her feet. It's then she noticed Linda had something clenched in her fist.

"What's this?"

The slayer opened her hand to reveal a few pointy metal cylinders. Bullets. Dawn has never seen any that weren't smashed up or attached to a cartridge before.

"I picked these up in the cave. Our weapons bounced off, but these went in and then came out. They glow a little. Are they magic?"

"Radioactive," said Dawn, picking one up for closer inspection. "I think these are depleted uranium bullets. These are small, though. Depleted uranium is used in large, anti-tank munitions. Leshii must had these custom made. I can't believe I know this. 'Alias' rules! It's a television show," she clarified.

"I like 'The Simpsons'," replied Linda.

"Give these to Willow when you see her. I think they are important."

"I made her mad," Linda spoke quietly staring at the ground. "She was angry with me this whole time. She was distracted and the spell didn't come out right. It's my fault."

"If Willow went on a mission distracted that's her fault, not yours," Dawn responded quickly least she loose the only barely-together person in the group. "Now, come on, help me get this show on the road."

"Are you coming with us? You should be in charge, you're good at it."

"I can't and you're a lot better at it than you think. Having the presence of mind to gather important clues shows you are the only one here who hasn't lost her head."

"No, it shows there wasn't much to loose there in the first place," the slayer scoffed.

"Linda," Dawn grabbed the girl's hands with both of hers and squeezed hard. "The few stupid people that know they are stupid don't joke about it. You can help your friends and they need your help. You can get back to your confidence crisis when you get to Rio, I promise. Now, come on!"

With Linda serving as her translator and a familiar face Dawn was able to coax the slayers into the truck. She went over the route to town three times and satisfied that the blond slayer knew precisely where she was going she send them on their way. It was over half an hour since she lost the headlights of the truck among the stars littering the clear night sky, but Dawn still stared after them from a large boulder she chose for a chair. This was just the first night. The first of many, many more nights away. Alone. She felt cold and homesick. The mountain winds chilled every part of her body inside and out, still she wouldn't get up.

"I think they forgot something," she heard Yozh behind her. Turning around she saw he was pointing at the bodies.

"We'll be taking them."

"What the hell for?"

"Because it's five hours by car."

"I think they kind of passed the point of caring."

"Big surprise you not getting it," Dawn spoke not bothering to hide her disdain, "but not everyone is thrilled about sharing a ride with mutilated bodies of their friends."

"So now because your girlfriends are a bunch of fucking wimps we are supposed to put up with stinking rotting corpses in the cabin?"

"If anyone will complain about the smell, it won't be theirs," she shot back focusing all her anger on that disgusting piece of lard.

"You've got a big mouth on you, kid," Yozh hissed threateningly. He walked up face to face to the girl as she jumped off the boulder. Actually it was more face to chin, as the gangster was a few inches shorter. He grabbed the back of her head and pulled her down to his level. "When a bitch opens her mouth at me it is so she can get it stuffed. You get my drift?"

"I wouldn't do anything like that if I were you, Yozh. Not if you don't want to end up with your balls stuffed into your eye-sockets," the melodious reply came from afar. Zemfira walked towards them unsteadily, as though drunk. A pleased, dreamy smile was swimming in between her cheeks. Dawn shoved the gangster and he obediently retreated a few steps. The witch walked up to the girl and gave her a soft hug. "This happens to be a gift for me. I told her I never had one before. Sure a live one would be best, but as first takes go this will do just fine. Hell, I'm high on the smell alone," she knelled down in front of the dead slayers and removed the blankets.

"Don't," all Dawn could manage as the shock of what Zemfira meant to do almost paralyzed her.

"They are dead, girl. They aren't of any other use," she said running her hands over the wounds.

"I said, don't!" the teenager snapped and forcefully grabbed her hand.

High or not, Zemfira's animal instincts were second to none and Dawn found herself thrown to the ground no less than fifteen feet away.

"Don't get me wrong, girl," Zemfira spoke still smiling. "I'm usually up for a little friendly rumble, but tonight has worn me out. Another time perhaps, when you have something to back up this stern glare of yours."

Her smile became a light chuckle as tears welled up in Dawn's eyes. The girl scrambled awkwardly to her feet and fled towards the cave, leaving the vampire to her grotesque intentions.

"Who, the hell, is she?" said Yozh lighting up a cigarette.

"She's important," Zemfira replied, cracking open Isidore's ribcage. "That's all you need to know, so don't mess with her."

"But you can?"

Reaching deep into the cavity the witch pulled out the heart with a gleeful squeal.

"I'm important, too," she said marveling at her prize.

"And I'm not?"

Zemfira turned to him and licked her fingers.

"You are merely useful."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As soon as she was a few meters into the cave entrance Dawn stopped. She leaned against the wall, but slid down as her legs gave from under her. She buried her face in her hands and began sobbing uncontrollably. There she was in a strange place, surrounded by these horrible people. She felt so powerless and forsaken. The memories came flooding back. Her limbs went numb as if bound to the bed frame by ropes. Her entire body tightened in fear, turning her sobs into gasps. Suddenly she snapped her head back against the wall. Again. Another hit, and the physical pain in her scull has finally won over the one in her mind. Get a grip. She wiped the tears off her face. These aren't girl scouts she joined. This won't be the worst thing they'll do. Besides, it's not like the slayers are getting any deader. When it really matters, then she'll make her stand.

She took the passage down to the cave. The weak glow from the expended uranium shells exposed the dark stains on the surrounding walls. Slayers' blood. She tried not to look as she quickly walked past into the excavation tunnels. These were much steeper and curvier. The torches were spaced too far apart giving her only enough light not to bump her head against the ceiling beams. Finally she saw a bright light at the end of one of the tunnels. Another cave.

"Stop," the voice rang out as she was only a few meters from the entrance. Dawn turned to see Leshii sitting on the floor of the passageway. It was so dark she must have walked passed him and didn't even notice.

"I don't want you to step on anything important. Better for us to leave archeology to the professionals."

Obediently Dawn walked back and sat down across from him. "How could he see anything here with these glasses still on?" she wondered. For a while she sat silently watching Leshii draw with his cane various incoherent doodles in the sandy ground.

"So, did you kill it?" she decided to attempt a conversation. "Whatever attacked the slayers? I didn't see any corpses."

No answer.

"Oh, for Christ's sake! What am I, luggage? This is exactly the stuff I can help you with! It's in your interest to make use of my knowledge and skill!"

"You are looking out for my interests."

"For the hundredth time, yes."

"So you were looking out for my interests when you commandeered my helicopter?"

She was ready for that one.

"Absolutely, " Dawn stated unequivocally. "See, you fly in, save your sister's friends, and kill the bad guys. Very heroic, by the way. Only you seemed to forget that killing the enemy, while an important part of saving, does not constitute saving per se. After watching that Moscow theater hostage rescue I figured it's just Russian style to concentrate on the violence vs. medical logistics. So I figured I take care of that part for you and make sure the people you just saved didn't bleed to death and so unceremoniously ruin an otherwise excellent operation. My actions were entirely based on what I thought you were trying to do. Did I misunderstand your intentions? Maybe. Maybe that's why you should tell me what they are!"

Leshii continued to draw out patterns on the ground.

"If you are able to lie to yourself as convincingly as you do to others, you'll go very far in this business," he said quietly as the echo of her shout died down.

"Fine," she threw up her hands. "My friends were in trouble and helped them. It didn't hurt you one bit. We'll pick up the helicopter tomorrow; they aren't going to steal it. It's true, ultimately I'm looking out for my sister's interests and you are looking out for yours. Guess what? Unless I'm seriously off, they are the same interests! And I didn't lie when I said I'm working for you because I think helping you help Stefka will help Buffy more than if I were to try to help her directly. I can repeat that if you didn't quite catch it. The point is that our interests are very much intertwined and if you let me, I can help you a lot."

There was silence again. Complete silence, undisturbed even by cane scratching the passage floor.

"Let me tell you then, Dawn, how your interests and mine happened to intertwine."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This was probably the hospital's administrator office. The paralyzing spell was showing signs of wear as they approached town and Kennedy left her here instead of putting her in the main ward. Willow was alone in the room; her ex-girlfriend has herded all available personnel, including administrative staff, to attend to the wounded slayers. The bright paint on the walls of the office has started to fade and peel. Willow lay on the visitor's bench slowly scrapping small shavings off the wall with her unsteady fingers. No particular reason, just something to do. "There's probably lead in it," she thought looking at the small crumbs of paint covering her hands. Her legs were beginning to come around as well. She got up, and holding on to the wall, limped a few steps to the desk. She ferreted a few sheets of paper and a pen from the drawers and began to put down the text that's been gelling in her head for the last hour.

"I always liked your handwriting," a familiar voice spoke softly behind her. "The letters are so slender, so weepy."

"Don't," Willow shook her head refusing to turn around. "Don't even try to pretend you are her."

"I'm not pretending," It sat on the corner of the desk now. The three year old haircut, the white sweater. The lifeless eyes. This was Buffy Willow remembered best and the one she tried hardest to forget. The one lying under the sacrificial tower she jumped off. Dead Buffy.

"When people die," the First continued. "It is not just memories of events they pass on, but of their feelings, too, emotions. The real Buffy died two and a half years ago. I'm not her, but I'm as much Buffy as what you brought back from the grave."

"I brought Buffy back. She's Buffy."

"A Buffy, not the Buffy. Not quite the same Buffy. You know it, you can feel it. She can feel it. Every time she looks up at the night sky it seems so much more familiar than the world at her feet. You failed again. Did you bring a part of her back? Is part of your beloved friend there, inside of that body, imprisoned in the uncertainty of who or what she is? I'm as much Buffy as her. More, even, for I'm willing to tell you the truth of how she feels."

"You don't want to tell me the truth, you want to hurt me!"

"You are right. But the thing about it is that nothing hurts as much as the truth. And the truth of the matter is that nothing really new happened today. You let down the people that counted on you. Just like you've always done. People you've just met. People that knew you since before birth. How many times has your mother called you since you told her? Since you brought Tara to dinner? She is pleasant enough when you call her. Very polite. But how many times has she called you in all that time? Has she ever? What about your father? What exactly has him so busy that he's out of the house every time you call or visit? Probably making additional prints of that Hanukkah family newsletter about his only daughter dropping out of accelerated Masters program to shack up with her overpiereced girlfriend and practice witchcraft. You certainly fulfilled their hopes. That's okay. Perhaps they are just hypocritical bigots. All love is beautiful. Of course the only woman you really loved is dead. Shot in your own bedroom. The place she felt was the safest in all the world."

Willow kept her head down the entire time the First spoke, but the last sentence made her look up at the face of her friend, into the eyes of her enemy.

"You tried to use this line before," she said forcefully, digging deep for whatever strength of will she had left. "It didn't work then and it won't now. I made my peace with Tara's death."

The First only smiled wider.

"So you have let your love go. The feeling you promised her you'd hold pure forever. Apparently defiling it with your vengeful rampage wasn't enough. That's alright. Perhaps relationships, like family, are not your forte. You're doing better with friends. They would never leave you. Well, Buffy tried, but you managed to drag her out of Heaven itself rather than be alone. She forgave you, of course. After all, you are her best friend, the person she can always count on, the first person she would call for help should something terrible happen. Something like loosing Dawn a second time. You saw her, didn't you? Out of the corner of your eye? It was no hallucination, she's with Leshii now. That's what that blinking message on your cell phone is about: a desperate plea for help from perhaps the only person who still believed in you; a plea that went unanswered. That happens, too. Duty got in the way of friendship. The duty to your young students. The duty to teach them demonology, literature, history, critical thinking... Everything they'll need to follow you like sheep to their bloody, pointless deaths. There's really no bright side to you, is there Willow? Even the rare successes you have are simply cogs necessary to move along this giant wheel of failure that is your life," It leaned in close, the blond locks of Its form almost touching Willow's hair. "You said you remember our talk a year and a half ago. Remember when I said everyone would be better off with you dead? I wasn't lying then, was I? If you slit your wrists like I told you to, I wouldn't be here. Dawn would be with Buffy, and Isidore and Elvera would be sunning themselves on the beach, stretching out many a young man's Speedos instead of maggot stomachs. You can still prevent things from getting worse. Just a few small changes and this letter would make a wonderful will."

The door knob turned letting Kennedy in.

"I see you are able to move again."

"Yes," Willow answered quietly. The First was gone. She folded the paper she was writing on and walked back over to the bench. "The spell is wearing out, but I still can't do any magic. How are the others?"

"Alive. Those who were, they are still alive and should remain that way," Kennedy was about to walk towards Willow, but paused as she were at the entrance. She wasn't sure how close she was wanted. She wasn't sure how much she should say. Even when they first met, when Willow was still heart broken over Tara, she was never this broken. Sitting on the old, rotting wooden bench was a wreak of human being. A slight breeze and they would both fall to pieces.

"That's not all," Willow said quietly.

"I guess your magic is coming back," Kennedy tried to smile, but elicited no response. "There was infection in Luisa's wound. Antibiotics wouldn't work and it was spreading... They had to take her arm."

"Oh God!" Willow dropped her head into her hands. "It's all my fault!"

"Don't," the slayer said forcefully. "So you misinterpreted a passage, or maybe it was just plain wrong. It happens. Let's not forget we are getting most of our info from people who thought the Earth was flat and mercury was good for your health." She finally made her decision and sat down next to the witch who still had her face buried in her hands. "How many of them do you think are out there?"

"What?"

"The Creature. Do you think there's only one, or does the First have a bunch of them stashed in some Hellmouth, like It did with the uber-vamps?"

"It is the First," was a barely audible reply.

"What?"

Willow took her hands away from her mouth, but her face still stared at the floor.

"The Creature is the First," she said louder.

"No, the First is incorporeal. Corpolessness, it is Its thing."

"Not anymore."

"Are you sure? How do you... Wait, not how, when," Kenned jumped off the bench and squatted in front of Willow. "When did you know it was the First?" She pulled her head up to bring the redhead to her eye level. "You knew when we came, didn't you? You didn't tell me, any of us! Why?"

"I didn't want Buffy to know," Willow's voice was shaking badly. It looked as though she wanted to cry, but somehow wasn't able to. "I thought I could get rid of It before she found it was my fault. That Dawnie was my fault. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for everything."

"What are you babbling about? How's what happened to Dawn your fault?"

"Don't you get it? It was me! I made It!" The binding spell has started to crack, evident from the way the witch was able to shove the slayer several feet. Kennedy just sat there looking on in utter bewilderment as Willow, now standing, explained. "Magic cannot alter the balance. Every action has a reaction, every spell has its price. I have given Slayer powers to a thousand of Potentials. Out of thin air I have created an army to fight on the side of Good. It had to balance. I knew that. I thought the price would be mine. I thought the spell would drain my power. When it didn't happen part of me was disappointed, part of me was relieved. I should have been all scared. I meant to look into it, to find out how the reaction has manifested itself, but there wasn't enough time. With the school, and the Council, and the covens, there just wasn't enough time," she paused looking into the shell shocked face of her ex-lover. "I failed to make time for things that truly mattered." She made the two steps that lay in between them and sat down next to Kennedy handing her the letter she has composed.

"What is this?" the girl muttered still trying to process.

"My resignation. You'll be in charge of Rio interim and I'm recommending you as a permanent replacement. I'm resigning from the Board as well, but they'll probably want another witch in my place."

"That's bullshit! You're going to hide under some rock now? Yes, you messed up pretty bad, but be a woman and fix it!" She angrily jammed the paper back into Willow's hand.

"I'm not hiding," she retorted calmly. "I'm just not qualified to lead, isn't it clear? I can't be in charge of anything, not now."

"Especially now! Willow, you're the smartest person I know."

"Then you need to get out more."

"Willow..."

"I may be smart, but I'm not cunning. I'm a teacher, not a leader. I'm not a wartime consigliere, Kennedy. I'm out," the witch eked out a weak smile. As stubborn as she was the pointlessness of the argument was all too obvious to Kennedy. It was time for her to leave but all she could do was sit there holding the redhead's pale hand in hers.

"I keep thinking about that day, " Willow spoke breaking the silence. "I remember every minute of it. The day it all ended and it all began. My old life forever buried in the ruins of Sunnydale behind me."

"15.5 miles behind you when the transmission fell out. Who picks a public school bus as a getaway vehicle? Those things are death traps."

"We just sat around at that motel for hours."

"14 hours. Charter bus couldn't come until next morning."

"Banged up, bloodied up, too tired to move, too excited to sleep."

"That was one sad-ass victory party," the reminiscing was bringing the buds of a smile to Kennedy's face. "Stale snacks from the vending machine and 14 hours of watching the first two Godfathers over and over. Of course, the only alternatives were porn and part III," she playfully shuddered.

"14 hours of watching you. All of you. Feeling what you are feeling. All that new power flowing through you. Feeling the others, hundreds of them rising up all over the world. Knowing that I made this happen. That the victory we've won was just the beginning, that nothing will ever be the same. That day, that night were the happiest of my life. I did what I could only have dreamed of, I've changed the world. God, Kennedy, I have destroyed it!"

"Stop it! It's just one demon, " she squeezed her hand hard. "We'll kill it. We're going to kill all of them! A world free from Evil, that's your legacy, Willow, and as sad and horrific as today was, it will only be a footnote."

"I've had enough of dead people in my footnotes."

"There'll be a lot more of them without you," the slayer jumped to her feet pulling the witch up with her. "If you really made this Thing, than you're stronger than It. You must help us."

"That's exactly the plan."

"What is the plan?"

"I'm much better at helping than doing. That's why I'm going back to Buffy. I do best when I do what she tells me to do."

"The slayer making spell was her idea!"

"Exactly. Unlike me, she always had a knack for fixing her screw-ups," she paused looking at the wall separating the office from the ward, "Mine are always permanent."

"That's your big plan, to absolve yourself of all responsibility?" Despite the angry tone of Kennedy's voice Willow could see her eyes starting to mist. Willow reached out and lightly caressed her cheek.

"I messed us up. I understand that now. I never allowed myself to truly fall in love with you. You are such a special, wonderful person and we, we too could have been special and wonderful if I'd given it a chance. You were right to leave me. You should have done it sooner. I have stolen from you a lot more love and time than I deserve. I hope someday you can forgive me."

"Willow..."

"No, don't say it. Not now. It's not true now."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For a while Dawn just sat there silent. It's not often you learn that what you thought was a great victory was in actuality an even greater loss.

"This is huge. We must let Buffy know right away."

"You will say nothing," said Leshii continuing to draw the odd shapes on the ground as he did since they starting talking, "I want her as far away from this as possible."

"What are you talking about? This is what she does!"

"No, this is what she fails to do. She had a chance to stop the First in Its tracks instead she was played into advancing Its plans. She needs to stay away from It. Perhaps today's events will give her the necessary pause, although the losses were not as great as I counted on."

"Oh, my God!" Dawn jumped to her feet. "You knew! You didn't just not warn them, you kept the helicopters grounded on purpose! You just sat there for an hour drinking coffee to give the First time to slaughter them!"

"They turned out to be more resourceful than I expected," Leshii has stopped drawing as the angry teenager has usurped the little area he was using.

"This is stupid! Moronic! Willow is the most powerful witch on this entire freaking planet! You will need her help!" appealing to the gangster's sense of decency or morality was obviously useless so she vented her rage in the only direction that could possibly have an effect.

"What help? Making a dozen of these Things? Whatever mistakes your sister made it was her spell that has ruined everything." The tone of the last sentence was noticeably elevated. Leshii was getting angry. That was the first ever hint of emotion she has gotten from him and while the prudent thing to do would be to let go the topic Dawn was too consumed by a sudden realization to do so.

"Everything? This isn't about the First at all, is it? You couldn't care less about the whole end of the world thing, you are mad at Willow for making Stefka a slayer!"

"That bitch has sentenced my sister to a short and miserable life!"

"For your information the only thing that makes Stefka's life miserable is having a sociopath for a brother!" It is then she realized she was screaming inches away from the face of the said sociopath. That's taking it a little too far, or is too close? "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she stepped back calming down. "Obviously mistakes have been made. Things did not turn out as well as expected. It happened before. Buffy will learn from her errors and..."

"No, she won't," Leshii voice returned to its normal dispassionate self. "This game is being played on a level she's not capable of rising to. There were plenty of signs. The only Potentials being hunted were the ones that knew of her existence. They were being herded, not exterminated. How many times was the Slayer cornered by Caleb only to be left alive? How many clues to Scythe's location did he leave for her to follow? She just assumed these were mistakes, oversights. The very idea that the First, a creature of supreme intelligence with virtually infinite knowledge can make mistakes, can be outwitted by her little band, that's what makes her incompetent."

"I see. Buffy thinking that she can win makes her stupid, but you thinking you can win makes you a genius?"

"I don't think I can win. I'm not playing for victory, just time. My goal is to delay the First's endgame. Ideally, long enough for my sister to live out her life in as much peace and happiness as possible. After she's dead this whole world can go to hell for all I care."

"Not seeing a lot of difference here."

"The difference is that if I get an opportunity to trade a possible apocalypse now for an assured one in a few decades, I will, but the Slayer won't." Both of them were back sitting on the ground, only this time Dawn was next to Leshii instead of opposite him.

"You are right about that," she said watching him resume his sketching. "That's why clues or no clues Buffy had to do what she did to take care of the super vampire army the First was prepping."

"It was a bluff to get the spell It needed, It was never going to release them."

"You can't know that, and we couldn't take that chance."

"There were other ways," he said drawing what looked like a rising fluffy cloud. "They were just vampires, super or not, easily incinerated. A simple tactical nuclear device would have taken care of the whole thing."

"Are you seriously saying we should have nuked Sunnydale?" Dawn bristled.

"Your amulet has put an eight mile wide crater in the middle of town. Not seeing a lot of difference here."

"Well, California isn't Russia. They don't sell nukes there at a neighborhood bazaar." She has realized Leshii was probably right three sentences ago, but continued to parry his arguments as a matter of family honor.

"So you claim the US army would just stand by and watch a horde of monsters march on Los Angeles?"

"I don't know. This is getting to be way hypothetical."

"You are right," Leshii turned over the cane and was now erasing his creations off the ground with the wide handle, "This discussion is over. You will tell your sister nothing. In fact, you will not communicate with her at all. You are allowed one letter a week, which you will give to me. Her response you will also get through me. Any attempt to circumvent these restrictions and you will suffer greatly."

"I keep trying to tell you that I work for you now. I'll do as you say; you don't have to threaten me. But you are wrong about Buffy. She can rise to any level she needs to. You'll see." The faraway sound of picks in the excavated cave punctuated the descended silence.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The emergency meeting of the Council Board was over. The only people left in the conference room were Buffy and Xander, in the form of a seventeen inch monitor with a camera on top.

"Have you talked to Willow yet?" Buffy asked

"It's 4am Rio time," Xander replied scratching his eye patch.

"She isn't sleeping."

"True. But if I call her it would imply that I think there's something she should be loosing sleep over. Right now all she thinks about is how much everyone's blaming her. I don't want to feed her paranoia. Later will be better. What I want to know is how are you dealing?"

"I'm not. Everything just goes whoosh," she made a sweeping hand motion over her head. "I feel like I got hit by a dozen shovels and everybody's crowding around me asking 'What are you going to do about it, Buffy'? 'I don't know. Can I have five minutes for my head to stop spinning?'"

"Let's look at this positively, you've been through worse. Okay, 'positively' may be the wrong word here, but the point is you'll bounce back, just like you always do."

"Yep," she nodded, "That's me, the amazing bouncing Buffy."

"That's how it works. You can't be the one making the first move if you have no idea where you are moving to."

"Are you saying I'm drifting aimlessly through life feeling burdened and deprived by my exalted calling, and yet making no serious effort to build a socially conforming alternative?"

"No, I don't think I'm saying that," Xander responded somewhat uncertainly. "I'm pretty sure you are not saying it either. Who are you quoting, Giles?"

"Dawn."

"That gal loves them fancy words," his attempt at a smile that was not returned. "She'll be fine," he added after a pause. "And she'll be back. Soon"

"Right"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The elevator took them up to the fourteenth flour. They were here to discuss a non-payment as Leshii put it. Her first job. Dawn's heart beat rapidly in fear and excitement as she followed Leshii to a massive steel door. It was not locked. Inside the luxurious apartment there were clear signs of a struggle. Porcelain shards littered the hardwood floor and the wallpaper was decorated with more than a few bullet holes. Two men in their forties were gagged and bound to a chair at each end of the living room. A couple of bored gangsters sat close by. As they entered one of them ran up to Leshii in expectations of new orders.

"Is that the mother?" asked Leshii motioning with his cane towards a pile on the floor which Dawn just realized was an elderly woman wrapped in plastic.

"I'm sorry, Leshii, " the gangster spoke quickly in a deliberately remorseful tone. "She died on the way."

"No shit."

As always Leshii's voice was so inexpressive it took Dawn a couple seconds to grasp it wasn't an idle comment. Bones was only a second behind her.

"No, no! We packaged her afterward. The old bag had a heart attack as soon as we grabbed her. Again, really, really sorry."

"That's alright, " said Leshii sitting down across from one of the captives. "I think pan Kazlowski got the point. I understand he also got a wife and two sons with hearts healthy enough to last long enough for them to wish they weren't."

Both men kept mumbling desperately into their gags, but their unintelligible sounds went completely ignored by the gangsters.

"Give her a gun, " said Leshii with a nod in Dawn's direction. Putting the cigarette into his mouth, Bones took out a semi-automatic and a revolver out of his pockets and after a moment of hesitation handed the latter to the girl. The gun was loaded and felt incredibly heavy, but the small curved handle fit comfortably in her palm.

"Shoot him, " said Leshii pointing to the man on his left.

"What? Hold on there. Shouldn't we break his knee caps first or something?" Dawn tried to smile, but her voice was shaking almost as badly as her hand.

"You watch too many movies. Point the barrel at his head, take off the safety, and pull the trigger."

"Dead men don't pay. That's true in movies or otherwise, " she objected, desperately trying to get herself out of the terrible task that was so unexpectedly and unceremoniously dumped on her.

"It is. But that's what their partners are for, " said Leshii nodding towards the bound man on the right. "Did you not say you are working for me? Did you not ask me to give you orders? This is what I do. This is what I order my men to do. Shoot him."

Dawn raised her gun. The man in the chair has stopped struggling and simply stared at the barrel of the revolver. This is it. If she puts down the gun she walks. She goes back to Buffy with nothing. All of it for nothing. For what? For him? Leshii is not a racketeer, he enforces peace treaties. Her target is a criminal. How many arsons did he order, murders? Scum. The only person who would mourn him is already dead and wrapped in plastic. The sound of her teeth grinding was echoing in her head. What does it even matter? If Leshii wants this man dead then he's dead. What's the difference who pulls the trigger? Pull the trigger. Pull.

"Congratulations, pan Kazlowski. You are now the sole owner of KievStalAuto. All back payments are due on Tuesday, " Leshii got up and tapped Dawn's shoulder who was still pointing the gun at the slumped body of her victim. "Let's go."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy locked the apartment door and just stared at the living room slowly rubbing her temples. She has to stop leaving Willow at her place unsupervised. The floor was littered with books. They seemed to cover every square inch and piled up three to four layers high. The witch sat in the middle of all that mess spooning a half eaten cartoon of ice-cream staring intently into nothingness. Buffy walked over to her trying not to step onto the two already empty gelato containers.

"Willow?"

The redhead put down her food, ripped a page out of the closest book and slowly wiped her mouth with it.

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm researching."

"The absorption qualities of seventeenth century print?"

"Seventeenth, eighteenth, fifth, twelfth, " Willow waved her finger around. "It doesn't matter. They are all dead. It knows every word. Every spell, every counter spell. Everything that was ever written down. Everything that wasn't. It's pointless."

"I see," Buffy walked over to the phone trying not too step on anything too fragile and scribbled something on the message pad.

"Here," she handed her friend the paper. "It doesn't know what's in this book."

"'Willow's Book of Spells', " the witch read the note out loud. "Willow Who?"

"Willow you! You are going to write your own book. These didn't materialize out of thin air. People wrote them. Witches. Witches who didn't have half the power you have."

"But they..."

"No buts!" Last night was devoted fully to coddling and hand-holding. Today is kicking-ass-into-gear time. "It's time you stop simply learning and tweaking. It's time you start inventing things that are completely new. You're giving way too much respect to your predecessors. You can do better. I didn't get to where I am by doing things the way other Slayers did."

"And where exactly are you?"

"Still alive. Eight years and going strong. I'm in the top ten all time now."

"Number seven," Willow nodded in agreement. "Although, technically, you've already died. Twice."

"Not the point."

"No, the point is that not everyone is dead," the redhead picked up the ice cream container again and resumed her gelato-thon, albeit in smaller bites. "There are a few spell books with living authors. Of course, if there are any dead readers, we're back to square one. I should call Kim, " she added pensively licking her spoon. "He might have something."

"He's on assignment. I got a list of all the places Leshii has been sighted in the past year from Mortimer. Kim is going to check them out. Maybe we'll get some clues to what the First is up to. Hopefully It won't show up. Giles is going to get the Home Office to make us some radioactive weapons. It'll take some time, though, the Brits are totally freaking out at the request. Stupid terrorists spoiling it for everybody, " she squatted down on the floor and began arranging the book medley into stacks. "To be honest, I still don't really get it. If radiation can't actually harm It, why does It run?"

"It can't stand the pain."

"What a baby," the Slayer smirked picking up a sixty pound stack of books.

"It is. It's like a newborn. To the whole mortal coil thing. Physical pain is a very intense experience, so like any newborn It throws a fit from a tiniest prick that an adult wouldn't even notice. For now. It will eventually adjust and we won't have a way of stopping It."

Buffy hesitated for a moment unsure if her decision to move all of these to Dawn's bedroom where Willow was staying now as a good idea. There was a real possibility they might not all fit. Then, of course, there was that little matter of most of these not belonging to Willow to begin with and Parreli having a heart attack when he notices half of his library gone.

"The Scythe, " she called out setting the books next to now Willow's bed. "Parreli thinks it's the anchor that holds the First in this plane of existence. We destroy it and It'll go back to Its incorporeal self."

"Only a slayer can kill It," Willow objected. "I'm sure of it."

"He agrees. Sort of, " Buffy picked up another stack. "Parreli thinks that since the Scythe was made for Slayers to use, only a Slayer can destroy it. Protection spell of some kind. I don't know, not really an expert, but I know somebody."

"A future best selling author?"

"Darn tooting!" Buffy replied with her best Willow impression. "The Scythe has been good to me and I will not get rid of it on a hunch. There's a lot of spell related stuff involved and I want you to double check every aspect of Pareli's work."

"You never trusted the elderly," said Willow with a disapproving headshake. "That's ageism, very unbecoming of a person in your position of authority. Parreli is an intelligent and capable man, he doesn't need me to look over his shoulder."

"How else are you going to check that he's not sleeping three quarters of the day?"

"Buffy!"

"I have nothing against the elderly. The average age of my ex-boyfriends is pretty close to Pareli's, but facts are facts. The man has always been aloof, and the aloofiness is getting worse. He spoke well at the meeting when he had to, but in between he was totally out of it. I never seen him so spaced out before."

"Well, maybe he's in shock, " the witch replied a bit agitated. "He only came out of retirement because he thought things have changed, that with so many slayers we would totally overwhelm any evil. Now the whole illusion came crushing down on his head and you should be happy he's doing something useful rather than wallowing on the floor in his bathrobe, eating carton after carton of ice cream!"

"Why did you make me picture Parreli in a bathrobe?" asked Buffy with a deliberately horrified expression on her face. "Do you hate me that much?"

"This is surreal, " Willow mumbled. "I mess up your life and you're cheering me up."

"You just hold on there! I put in a lot of work into messing up my life and I'm not letting you take the credit." All books moved, Buffy stood now over the crouching figure of her friend. "I can't stop you from feeling guilty, Will, but I have to ask you to limit the circle of your perceived victims, because I'm running out of ice cream," with that she ripped the almost empty cartoon out of the witch's hands and took it back to the kitchen.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Giles stopped writing and simply listened to the pendulum of the antique clock on the wall of his office clicking the seconds away. He didn't need to look at it to know he was late. Perhaps a few more minutes. No. He put down his pen and grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair exited the side door into a private lounge where he was expected. Conference rooms at the Watcher Academy were now outfitted with mostly modern furniture, but this room had the air of the old headquarters. Large leather chairs with end tables next to each stood in the middle of the room while tall bookcases lined the walls. A few sovereign portraits and Greek style sculptures completed the decor. As soon as Giles sat down in the lone empty seat Kasek poured three fingers of scotch into a crystal glass and placed it on the table next to him.

"I call this meeting of the Shadow Council to order, " said Robson tapping the table with his pipe.

"I wish you would stop calling it that, " said Giles taking his first sip.

"I wanted to call it Watchers' Council, you were the one who chose the current name, Rupert. What do you want to call it now?"

"How about the Council of Impotent Malcontents."

Sitting across from Giles was Harold Owens, the head of the Asia Pacific branch. Not counting Parreli who seemed barely awake at the moment, he was the most experienced Watcher in the room and felt very much slighted by Giles installing his friend Robson as the head of their group.

"May I remind you, Mr. Giles, that you are part of this Council, " he said dryly.

"I'm comfortable with my designation."

"You cannot continue to straddle the fence, Rupert, " Robson spoke again. "Our brave new world is crumbling just as we are starting to build it. We cannot properly face the Enemy without until we deal with incompetency within. I always admired your loyalty, but right now, Rupert, your duty to the world as a whole should take precedence."

"Do not lecture me on my duties, William. Or is the purpose of this meeting an intervention?"

"I apologize if I offended you. I called this meeting because an opportunity presented itself to finally restore the control of this organization to where it belongs, in the hands of the Watchers. Rosenberg's resignation was a silver lining to the disastrous Peruvian campaign."

"A silver lining?" Giles slammed his glass on the table. "Willow's departure is a serious loss. The South American branch was the best managed among all of the new locations."

"It's not her abilities that are in question," Kasek spoke from the corner seat. "It's her loyalties. She was too close to the Slayer."

The purpose of the meeting was becoming very clear.

"We really should concern ourselves more with the approaching apocalypse and less with containing Buffy," Giles attempted to turn the discussion.

"The two are tied together, " Robson countered. "The hands off approach that our dear Chairman has practiced so far was due more to boredom than conscious decision making. Now that the First has returned the Slayer will seek to re-impose her authority. And, Rupert, this is not meant as an insult to your pupil, or you for that matter, but the Slayer is just that, a fighter. One might argue the best fighter in the last thousand years, but this is not an axe. This is a multinational organization with thousands of members and employees and I'll be damned if I let a college dropout run it!"

"We have made an explicit arrangement with Buffy..."

"No one is trying to take away her chairmanship. As a figurehead her value is immeasurable, but so will be the damage if she is allowed to actually make decisions. Rosenberg's departure will give us South American branch which will put over eighty percent of slayers under our command. Most importantly, securing the available seat will effectively give us control of the Board."

"Only until the expansion, " Giles corrected.

"Altering the makeup of the Board requires a sixty percent majority. If we get Willow's seat.."

"Too late, " Giles interrupted Owens. "I have dragged it out for as long as I could, but at the emergency meeting Buffy demanded an immediate vote. There will be two more slayers on the Board now. I suppose, with various debates, selection procedures, and candidate reviews, I can delay the confirmation vote for another month, or two, but not forever."

"Any idea who she has in mind?"

"The head of each chapter will get to nominate a candidate."

"Naturally, whoever Buffy will nominate from Rome will get one of the seats, " said Robson taking a drag of his pipe. "What are we looking at?"

The question was addressed to Parreli. The elderly Watcher appeared to have dozed off for the entire conversation so far, yet responded promptly to the direct question.

"Stefka Bulanova is the most likely candidate. Alice Benson is also in the running, and, possibly, Samira Enayati."

"I doubt she'll come to you for advice, Dino, but she does speak to you occasionally. Try to find a reason to compliment Alice's intelligence and leadership skills. We could use a proper British lass over there. Any suggestions of who we should support for the second seat?"

"Second seat will go to Kennedy, " Giles answered.

"Kennedy is the interim chief in South America," Owens bristled. "Did she nominate herself?"

"Are we surprised by this?" Kasek smirked.

"Apparently Willow has submitted her candidacy in her last official act as the head of Rio branch."

"I see, " Robson said pensively, taking another drag. "If we get the permanent head of South America in place quick enough, would Buffy accept a different nomination?"

"Kennedy will be made permanent."

"This is outrageous! Since when is sleeping with your supervisor qualifies you as a replacement?" Being the youngest among the participants Kasek has kept respectfully quiet, but this latest revelations has pushed him over the edge.

"This is over the line, Rupert," Robson's voice was not much calmer. "This is worse than Xarris's assignment. She cannot handover the lives of a hundred and fifty teenage slayers to a girl barely two years older than they are! Has she gone completely mad?"

"I have tried my best to dissuade Buffy, but it was in vain. She is treating Willow's resignation letter as a list of last requests. The confirmation is the day after tomorrow and we don't have the votes to block it."

"I'm sure Kim can be persuaded in the validity of our position," Owens suggested. The old reclusive wizard was known long, but not well by the Watchers.

"Kim is angling for Willow's seat just as we are, " Giles quickly rebutted. "He will doubtlessly use this situation to set us up. He'll promise to support us, then will vote for confirmation, endearing himself to Buffy and putting Parreli and myself in the doghouse."

"And then his candidate for the Board will get the Slayer's support, " the gray-haired Italian nodded in agreement.

"All this assumes Xarris will side with Buffy in all matters," said Kasek struggling to make some kind of contribution to the ideas exchange.

"On most matters, yes, and in these matters particularly. Xander and Willow are childhood friends and he'll follow her wishes. No, there's no stopping that confirmation, and we should not try. Given my resistance at the last meeting I cannot switch to a 'yes' vote, so I will abstain. Parreli will vote to confirm and submit our candidate for the Board. We should try to pick someone who has a good rapport with Willow, as Buffy will certainly seek her opinion on the matter."

"Once we get that seat we may be able to block Kennedy from getting hers, " Owens sounded almost pleased.

"Kennedy heading South America is a reckless gamble, but Kennedy on the Board might not be such a bad proposition, " said Robson filling up his pipe.

"She hates Watchers, " Kasek retorted.

"Kennedy despises all authority, and this time we shall be the benefactors of that flaw, " Robson explained. "We can count on her voting against Buffy just out of a sheer thrill of voting against her. As long as we maintain an illusion that we wield little power and the Slayer is the one in charge, she will be our swing vote. Are you feeling alright, Rupert?"

Giles looked on with sickened expression as the Dean of Demonic Studies shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The wounds from the Bringer ambush would ache consistently in the drizzly weather. Two minute difference in his arrival was the difference between Robson being the head of the department and being beheadedly departed. He was beginning to regret taking that shortcut.

"We're making me nauseous, " Giles answered no longer trying to contain his disgust. "This is the reason the Watchers' Council got obliterated in the first place: intrigue and power wrangling, and we are dragging all this rubbish back in!"

"The Council, in its rigidness and traditionalism was unable to respond to the new enemy tactics in a timely fashion. What we are doing is not reactionary, but proactive and pragmatic."

"It might take as long as ten years, Rupert, to educate enough new Watchers to properly fill our ranks," Robson spoke to further Kasek's train of though. "In the meantime it is up to us, no, up to you, to make sure the organization lasts that long. You know that, or you wouldn't keep coming here. I think it's quite clear to everyone now that the primary reason the First destroyed the Council prior to fully engaging in Sunnydale was to make sure there were no Watchers to prevent the Slayer from taking the shortsighted action that got us into the current mess. The few of us that remain, Rupert, is the only thing that stands between the First and the world's destruction."

"You can't think to hold Buffy responsible for everything that has gone wrong! I was there too, remember?"

"And you might very well have seen this coming if she let you do your job. If you didn't have to constantly deal with her disobedience. If she did not consistently undermine your authority with the Potentials, if you didn't have to keep dealing with the consequences of her unending streak of errors..."

"Buffy's intuition have come through on many occasions, " Giles interrupted Kasek to defend his Slayer. "If I succeeded in killing Spike he would not wear the amulet that destroyed the First's vampire army."

"That's right." Robson and Kasek tag team continued to work flawlessly. "With Spike dead, Angel would have had to wear it then, which would make him presently immolated instead of working for Wolfram&Hart. There's no need to defend her. Your duty as a Watcher was to raise a warrior, and you did, a great one. But great warriors make lousy generals. They don't have the intelligence to make proper decisions, but have overabundant confidence and stubbornness to keep trying."

They certainly came prepared. A straightforward attack on Buffy would doubtlessly fail, but the Watchers went to great lengths to separate Giles from his pupil, heaping constant praise on his work. They strove hard to portray this not as a power grab and a betrayal, but a regretful and necessary action to save the world and his Slayer who has gotten in too deep for her own good. The phone ring interrupted his thoughts. Giles stared at the caller id as it rang again. Then a third time.

"What is it?" Robson asked.

"Angel. How's that for coincidence."

"What could he want?" Kasek rose from his seat.

"Whatever it is, he's not getting it, " Giles took the call and quickly walked back into his office. The return was quick.

"Well?"

"He was asking for help. Some evil demon possessed one of his people."

"Perhaps he shouldn't have signed up to run a place full of evil demons, " Kasek smirked.

"His problems are not our problems. I made it quiet clear."

"The last thing we need is Wolfram&Hart meddling in this," Owens grumbled. "Will he try to contact the others?"

"Willow is in seclusion and Buffy won't talk to him even if he dares to call her. His problems are his own. Although I would readily trade his problems for our problems," Giles sighed returning to his seat. Willow wasn't the only one who hasn't slept all night. The physical exhaustion was starting to take a toll on his concentration. He wanted this over now.

"As must he so must we deal with our problems ourselves. Are we going to deal with our problems, Rupert?" reading Giles' body language well Robson decided to press.

"I have faith in Buffy, " he answered after a pause. "These past eight months I have been encouraging her to take greater interest in the Council because I believed that in time she would grow into the role destined for her. I still believe that, but I do not believe we have that time."

"So it's settled then," Owens nodded approvingly. "We take full reigns of the Council."

"While it is preferable that we obtain a voting majority on the Board, it is not necessary," said Parreli finally turning proactive. "The power of every organization of any significant size lies in its bureaucracy. We have spent a great deal of time placing people loyal to us at every level. We can cut the Slayer off from information. She can't make decisions in a vacuum."

"Buffy is not stupid, she'll notice the run around, but with Willow, and Dawn, and the First on her mind, she won't have time or energy to fight this properly," Giles added trying to bring the meeting to a close. "Still, I cannot appear overtly controvert. She trusts me. We argue and we disagree, but at the end of the day she trusts me. We must preserve that as long as possible."

"Very well, " Robson nodded in agreement. "You are the good cop, as they say, and I'll play the bad cop."

"And Dino will play the senile cop," added Owens lifting his glass for a toast.

The room chuckled. Giles smiled, too, taking the final sip of his scotch. His head was throbbing and rancid taste in his mouth would not wash away. He has done his share of questionable deeds for the greater good, but even strangling a defenseless man to death did not so weigh down his soul.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This was a new coffee place. Buffy was surprised to find one this close to her apartment. She was sure that in her six months of wandering into every single store and shop with a brewing machine in the neighborhood she has covered them all. Yet there it was. All her past afternoon hangouts were making her uneasy at best and nauseous at worst. This tiny place just a few blocks away seemed like a small consolation gift for everything Fate did to her in the last month. To her? She is not the one who has been raped, she's not the one who's been torn to bits. Damn, there she goes again, feeling worse for feeling bad. Buffy gulped down one of the espresso cups that she lined up in front her like a cordon of shot glasses. That's better. Just this side of tolerable. And now back to the other side.

"You know there's a reason this table has just one chair, " she said annoyed as Mortimer sat himself on the window seal across from her. He was wearing perhaps the plainest clothes she has ever seen on him. Jeans. The Immortal owns jeans?

"I apologize for disturbing you, but you aren't taking my calls or returning any of my messages." The constant pearly smile was nowhere to be seen. His face was an epitome of somber concern.

"I'm sorry. Did my slayers getting killed get in the way of your evening plans?"

"I did not know the First turned corporeal. I would have told you, I swear."

"Whatever, " she answered demonstratively concentrating on her next cup of espresso.

"No. It's important to me you believe that I would have told you."

"I'm not having this conversation."

"That's good because I came to talk about something completely different," Mortimer leaned in closer. The smile, or rather a hint of one was beginning to plant itself on his face. "An acquaintance of mine is going to a beach in Zanzibar. A beautiful, secluded island spot. The softest yellow sand. The water is warm, and with the full moon tonight the view will be beyond gorgeous. The portal will stay open all night, so I figured you, I, and a bottle of champagne could pop in for a few hours."

"Why?"

"Given everything that happened these past few days, I thought you could use a relaxing night off."

"No," Buffy put down the empty cup and grabbed the last soldier in her little espresso regiment. "'Why?' You've got your notch."

"If all I wanted was a notch, I'd have it a lot sooner."

Her mouth filled with hot liquid caffeine Buffy had to limit her supreme indignation to an eye roll.

"What I'm looking for here is something bigger," Mortimer continued, his face growing serious again.

"An orgy?"

"A relationship"

"With me? Why?"

"Since when did you acquire low self esteem?"

"Since you asked me to be your girlfriend"

"I'm serious."

"That's what makes it so funny." Buffy wasn't lying. She was beginning to feel glad that Mortimer has shown up.

The Immortal smiled as well, nodding in appreciation of her point of view.

"I know you're uncomfortable. Between my reputation and your experience in the department, who wouldn't be? I also know you like me. This can work. We go as fast or as slow as you want. It's all up to you. I'm prepared for this to go on indefinitely."

"Indefinitely, " Buffy pronounced with emphasis. "As in undefined. As in until you meet the next girl, a week or two from now."

"I won't lie to you. If I do meet someone who attracts and excites me more than you, I will pursue her. But given that you're the first one I wanted to see outside the bedroom in over three thousand years, what are the odds?"

"Maybe slayers are you thing," she mumbled checking the little cups littering her table. "There's a whole lot of them out there now."

"You are my thing, Buffy, and there's only one of you."

Every single cup was empty. She finally looked up at the man across from her. What was it about him? She wanted to feel angry but the more she stared at Mortimer the more she believed him, in him. He felt good and familiar, a lone bright light in this no longer gray, but blackening reality.

"Zanzibar, huh?"

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .**

The limo that drove them to the apartment from the airport was now taking them somewhere else. The windows were so heavily tinted Dawn could barely see anything. "Zemfira must be using this car, too, " she thought. Kiev was no Rome, but the passing scenery of this still quite ancient city would have been a welcome distraction from the image of the bloodied corpse that would not leave her mind.

"May I ask how much he owed you?" she inquired of Leshii who was sitting next to the window on the other side of the car.

"Seven hundred thousand"

"The guy was a partner in huge steel mill equipment making factory and he wouldn't pay you seven hundred thousand to save his life?"

"The money I make is a percentage of revenue. He was cooking the books. When I found out he offered to pay almost five times the amount of missing money."

"But killing him and his seventy five year old mother was totally worth the three plus million."

"Seven hundred thousand, three million," he shrugged. "It is all a pittance compared to the total inflows into the organization. The example set today safeguards these moneys."

The limo drove into what appeared to be a storage area for some factory. Leshii quickly exited the car and walked through a metal door next to where they stopped. The narrow staircase delved deep underground. Leshii turned to see if Dawn was following.

"Let me guess," he said taking in the expression on her face, "You found another problem I'm not aware of."

"It won't work, " she tried to keep the sentences short as flying down the stairwells was taking a disproportionate amount of her oxygen. How can a guy with a cane move this fast? "It's been historically proven. Terror is not a viable long-term strategy."

"Sure it is. If you respect the tenets."

"What tenets?"

"There are just two. Everyone who works for me knows them. That means you should, too, " Leshii's voice remained even despite the maddening pace of the descent. The reason his limp wasn't slowing him down was because he was hardly using his legs. Placing his hand in the middle of the rail and pushing off with his cane allowed him to cover the short flights in a single bound. "First, terror must have rules. Nothing breeds fear faster than random acts of violence. But random violence makes random fear. With random fear human psyche either breaks down to the point of uselessness or rebels against the uncertainty. Consistent punishment is the key. The subject should feel safe as long as he stays within a well known set of boundaries."

"Wait up!" Dawn yelled realizing she was at least three flights behind. "I admit it, for a guy with inoperable cartilage damage you're pretty spry. What I've got though, is four inch heels which are equivalent to two busted legs."

"I suppose you poor choice of footwear is somehow my fault, " Leshii responded, stopping nevertheless.

"You told me we were going to a business meeting, hence the stylish suede. If I knew your idea of a business meeting was blowing people's brains out and stairwell calisthenics, I'd worn something flat and machine washable." With just one step left in between her and her new boss she stopped and leaned against the wall slightly panting. For about twenty seconds her breathing was the only sound.

"Done?"

"Yes, " Dawn nodded. "Just needed a little bitch break. Feel free to continue."

"The second tenet, " Leshii resumed his speech as he proceeded down the stairs at a noticeably slower pace. "Is terror must have no limits. We make our decisions on risk-reward calculation. Some people do it well, but some do it very poorly. Which means that the terror awaiting them outside the boundaries must be so great and so certain as to erase all thought of crossing them, whatever the reward. You must be prepared to destroy anything that holds value to them, whatever it is. And you must do so for everybody who crosses the line. No one is too important, or too unimportant, or too numerous. The last one is especially important. No phrase is used to inspire more desperate actions, more revolutions, than 'They can't kill everybody'. You must be able to. A hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand. Everyone, anyone, no exceptions. Like gravity you must become a certainty in their lives, and you'll be surprised how fast people stop flapping their arms."

"The Wright brothers eventually built a plane," Dawn interjected going with the metaphor.

"Everything ends eventually. If I expected to exist as long as gravity has, I'd be worried." They exited the stairwell into an old subway tunnel. Dawn could hear the trains running close, but she wasn't sure if it was above her or below her, right or left. There was a flaw in Leshii logic and she would certainly find it if that damn racket didn't echo in her head. And that awful whistling sound. No, that wasn't the train. Sticking just halfway out of the manhole in the middle of the tracks Zemfira waved them in.

"How many sewer hideouts do you people have?" said Dawn as they descended down into a labyrinth of narrow service tunnels.

"I spent almost eighty years crawling through the asshole of every European city, " the vampire replied. "I know dozens of places. We've equipped some of them for business. There's one we have in Moscow that's positively posh."

They walked a few hundred feet before Leshii made an abrupt turn and walked right through a wall.

"Nice glamor, " Dawn smiled approvingly.

"Why, thank you, " the witch replied also smiling but somewhat slyly.

Briskly following in Leshii's footsteps Dawn walked right into the brick, but not through. The pain shot through her nose knocking her down on her butt, her head ringing from the impact. Zemfira fell to the ground, too, only she was seizing from laughter.

"What are you doing?" Leshii called out from behind the wall.

"She walked right into the protection barrier!" Zemfira words very barely intelligible coming through the high pitched laughter.

"You said it was glamor!" Dawn shouted angrily at her.

"It is, " Zemfira was still laughing. "Barriers are invisible; the glamor makes this one look like a wall. You're such a dork!"

"Alright," said the teenager carefully feeling her nose. "So she has the maturity of an eleven year old, what's your excuse?"

"My excuse?" Leshii repeated.

"Why didn't you warn me there was a barrier?"

"I didn't know it was there."

"Right," Dawn nodded. "Magic immunity, I forgot."

Zemfira waived the force field away and they followed Leshii into the hidden section of the sewers. There were walls put up in various sections of the corridors turning some of them into makeshift rooms. Relatively dry and well lit it could almost pass for a floor in some decrepit office building.

"Your bedroom's here, " Zemfira pointed to one of the doors. "I'm over there, and Leshii stays there. Do not go into his room uninvited."

"Bathroom?" asked Dawn still feeling her nose.

"On your left down that passage," Zemfira yawned, "I'm going to take it real easy for the next few hours; I suggest you do the same, " she yawned again and disappeared behind one of the doors.

Dawn walked into what was pointed out as her room. A bed, a nightstand, and a lamp on it. Put a toilet bowl in the corner and it could easily have been a prison cell. "At least the sheets look clean," Dawn thought taking a gander under the covers. Her suitcase was there, too. She grabbed the towel and a few tiny soap bars she appropriated from the Moscow hotel three days ago and headed for running water.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The bathroom was no less Spartan than the bedroom. The makeshift ceiling and the concrete floor were covered in mildew and the faucet looked old and rusty, but there was hot water inside and a mirror on top of it, and for the moment that was enough. She leaned in close checking out the damage to her nose. A little puffy, but definitely not broken. In fact the eyes looked a lot puffier than the nose. That girl in the reflection could really use some sleep. Possibly a shower, too. There wasn't one here, just a tub that from the looks of it was never used. Or, perhaps, used too much. Her fake cringe has turned very real as she suddenly noticed a few red specs behind her ear. Blow back from the execution. Her hands slightly shaking she turned on the water and began rubbing away the blood. Only bringing her hands so close to her face did she notice how much they still stank of gun powder. She grabbed the soap, rubbed hard, rinsed, and brought them up to her nose again. Still there. She washed again, and again. Exasperated she threw the soap in the sink and stepped back, trying to calm down, but the image in the mirror made her freeze in terror. Staring back was a face just as horrified, only that of Tara.

"How could you, Dawn?" the ghostly image of the dead witch spoke, then moved forward. Hovering atop of the sink now, Tara's entire torso was visible, complete with the bullet hole under her breast. "How could you do it?"

Dawn turned and ran. She tripped at the bathroom exit, but quickly scrambled back to her feet. She felt like her heart could burst through her chest at any moment. "It's the First. It's messing with me. That's all it is, " she mumbled trying to calm herself. The others, they need to be warned. She ran down the corridor and burst into Zemfira's room. In the middle stood a tub surrounded by a dozen candles. The girl seemed to have fallen asleep in it.

"Zemfira, " Dawn called out taking a couple steps forward. She was about to call her again, but the words stuck in her throat. Blood. Everywhere. It filled the tub, dripped down the fingers of Zemfira's overhanging hand, staining the candlelit floor. Like a dozen times in her nightmare she backed away shuddering as the blood puddle around the tub spread slowly towards her. This time the door behind her wasn't locked. She ran out into the corridor again, her head spinning. Or was she really spinning trying to decide which direction to flee? Everything turned dark and she felt herself falling.

"Dawn!"

She opened her eyes to find herself in Zemfira's arms. The vampire caught her at the last moment and laid her gently to the ground.

"Did you just pass out?"

"I guess, " she responded weakly. She looked up at the witch. The girl looked alive and well in a snug pink bathrobe.

"You're white as a ghost!"

"How appropriate, since I've just seen one."

"You saw a ghost?"

"No. The First was just here. It's really knows how to get to you," said Dawn feeling well enough to try to sit down.

"It wasn't the First, Dawn."

"Yes, it was. It imitates dead people."

"So I've heard. But I have a spell guarding this place. It can't project Itself here. Can't eves drop, can't make you see dead people."

"If It can break Willow's spells, It can break yours."

"Hey! Raw power doesn't mean shit without skills! And I've got skills she can only dream about dreaming of having!"

"The First still knows more. It could have broken through your spell."

"Well, of course It can break it, but not without me knowing. The spell's intact, has been for hours, so it wasn't the First."

"So, what, you think there's a ghost living in the bathroom mirror?"

"How should I know, you haven't even told me what you saw."

"A friend. Willow's girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Because she's dead, not because they broke up."

"Of course. Who could possibly break up with oh so great and powerful Willow?" scoffed Zemfira.

"Stop it, already."

"I didn't start it."

"Whatever, I'm trying to tell you stuff!"

"Fine. The dead girlfriend, what did she say?"

"'How could you do that?'"

"How could you do what?"

"Kill that man at the apartment, what else?"

"Why would she care?"

"She was shot, too," said Dawn trying to stand up. She was still pretty woozy. "A stray bullet meant for Buffy."

"I don't think so. Ghosts are very self-centered creatures. They haunt places of their death, their killers, but they don't join anti gun violence campaigns. You know what I think you saw?"

"What?"

"Nothing. You flew halfway around the world and back. You haven't slept for days, and you just had your first non-temporarily insane kill. You're exhausted physically and emotionally."

"You think I hallucinated?"

"Maybe you just fell asleep for a moment. In your condition it all bleeds together."

"Bleeds together. That's appropriate. Maybe you're right. Back in your room I thought your tub was full of..." A tiny red trickle was coming down Zemfira's ankle. "..Blood"

"I know! I was just as surprised as you are! Here I come in, all down and tired, and there it sits, a blood bath of thirty virgins! See, those terror tenets are definitely important, but it's gestures like these towards your key personnel that make you beloved, and thus an even more effective leader."

"Leshii did this?"

"Of course, who else would go to all this trouble? Sure, some of the blood was refrigerated, I could tell, but even a neat-picking freak like myself wouldn't expect him to keep thirty live virgins on hand. Well, maybe for my tricentennial," Zemfira giggled. "I'll go soak some more before it coagulates or something. You go sleep, " she spat on her index finger and drew a line with it across Dawn's cheek.

"Ewww! What are you doing?"

"Anti-nightmare rune. You'd rather I use blood?"

"Does it have a bodily fluid?"

"You are so skittish. All done. You can wipe it off now."

She did and started quickly towards her room, then stopped and turned.

"Thank you," she said. The witch gave her a little wave and went back inside. The anti-nightmare spell had probably some sedative qualities to it as well. Almost on auto-pilot Dawn walked into her room, took off her shoes and dropped off as soon as her head touched the pillow.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The phone ring woke her up. Dawn reached out half asleep to grab the offender. It wasn't her phone. The bulky contraption was three times as big and smelled of incense or something like it.

"Hello?"

"Meeting in ten minutes. Turn right and another right. It will be the last door down the corridor," said Leshii and hung up. Dawn turned on the lamp on the night stand. Her phone was gone. Apparently the monstrosity in her hand is what she is supposed to use now. She opened up her suitcases and began to examine her possessions. Leaving the way she did meant the only things she had were the luggage she took to Moscow and most of the outfits there were not exactly in prime condition. The sewers were reasonably warm due to all the hot water pipes strewn about, so covering up with an overcoat was not an option. She pulled out a pantsuit. "This looks reasonably smart, " she thought still fighting to keep her eyes open, "And reasonably fresh. Could use some ironing. Not that I have the time. Or the iron. Or know how to use one. Alright, it settled. My first question for the question and answer section, the name of a good dry cleaner." Once the clothes were on she did her best to arrange her hair in front of a three inch make-up kit mirror. "Nuts," she grumbled noticing her gum pack was empty. She squeezed a bit of toothpaste in her mouth and swooshed it around, grimacing as she swallowed it. "Bleech! Disgusting, yet minty." Three minutes to go. She ran out, then made a quick one eighty, almost loosing her footing. Pen and paper. Two minutes. The implements in her hands she headed quickly through the corridor maze. Right, then another right. As she made the last turn she collided shoulder to shoulder with suavely dressed Asian man heading in the opposite direction. Giving Dawn a disdainful look he adjusted his suit and proceeded on his way without saying a word.

"Was that Jap?" she asked Zemfira who waiting for her at the meeting room's door.

"That's the guy," the witch nodded.

"Isn't he going the wrong way?"

"His meeting is over, he's not part of the hunting crew."

"How come?"

"Someone has to mind the store while daddy's away," Zemfira was about to walk into the meeting room when Dawn grabbed her arm.

"Hold on. If Jap's job is taking care of the Business, why is Leshii wasting time dealing with some lousy half a million debt?"

"Do I look like a one-eyed cripple to you?" the witch snapped at her.

"Sorry."

They walked in together. The small room had a big oval table with five chairs taking up most of it and a blackboard opposite the door. Leshii was already inside.

"I take it Martin won't be joining us, " Zemfira said jumping onto to the table.

"Who's Martin?" asked Dawn, pulling out a chair.

Her question was ignored completely as Leshii continued to peruse the file in front of him. Zemfira appeared to be reading it, too, only standing on the table looking at the documents upside down. Dawn looked at her watch. The meeting was supposed to start four minutes ago.

"You are late, " said Leshii without lifting his head. Dawn turned to see Yozh pulling a chair next to her.

"Just wanted to let the place air out a bit, " he snarled. Was that regarding Jap? Dissension in the ranks, how interesting.

"I'll be brief, " Leshii began the meeting. He took a piece of chalk and limped a few steps to the board. "Most of this is for your benefit, " he nodded towards Dawn. "We know that the First is looking for weapon that can destroy the world. This weapon is in pieces that have been hidden around the globe. We don't know what it is, how it works, what those pieces are, or how many of them are there," As he spoke he wrote out a single word from each sentence, underlying twice. Weapon. Pieces. How many2.

"So we know nothing, " Dawn summed up.

"We suspect It has some pieces, but not all."

"How many do we have?"

"None."

"Great."

"So far we were always a step behind, but that is about to change, " Leshii put the chalk down and took the sit back at the table. He began taking the sheets out of a folder in front of him and putting them into separate piles. "We know that the mausoleum the First ransacked in the Andes belonged to a wizard of the order that scattered the weapon. We do not know what It was looking for, but our guess is that it is related to an amulet the wizard created just after. We are not sure what it does, but we're pretty sure we can get our hands on it. There are two halves to this amulet. We have located one of the pieces some time ago and we have just learned the location of the second from the cave's tablets. Our operative reports the First has been there for at least a day. Which means It hasn't yet found the piece's exact location or has trouble retrieving it. Hence the primary force will go with myself and Zemfira to Turkey. Yozh, you and Dawn will pick up the other piece in Chechnya."

"Hold on, " the young Summers just couldn't help interrupting. "You knew where the first one was and you didn't get it?"

"It took Jap some time to make proper arrangements with Shamil. We're shipping three trucks worth of weapons and explosives as part of the exchange. You will pick them up in Grozny and drive them to his camp."

"We're buying it? Why can't you just fly in with your big guns and grab it?"

"The risk of failure is too great to justify the savings." The new paper pile seemed complete now as Leshii picked up the stack and hit the desk with it a few times to align the sheets. "Shamil would rather trade the amulet to me than the First, but if he feels threatened he'll seek shelter in Its arms. This is being planned as a peaceful mission. The First will be occupied with us, so you shouldn't need more than eight men."

"My first assignment and I get the B-team, " sighed Dawn in a pretend disappointment.

"Yeah," Yozh smiled not picking the intonation. "I pity the fool! I pity the fool!"

"That's the 'A-team'."

"Which one was the B-team?"

"Oh, God."

"Why the fuck is she going with me?" Yozh complained loudly to Leshii realizing the girl was having fun at his expense.

"Shamil is an ex-Vengeance Demon, " Zemfira answered instead. "My girl happens to be an expert in the field."

"People have been selling weapons to Shamil for years without being no fucking demon experts. I can handle the trade, " the fat man retorted.

"I want the artifact authenticated," Leshii finally replied putting the separated stack into a new folder.

"And that means magic, " Dawn grinned at Yozh. "Can you handle that?"

The answer was the Russian equivalent of a bird. The two-handed gesture looked much grander than a good old American finger, but not very convenient. Dawn always thought it very symbolic of the differences between the cultures. It well suited a people more ceremonial and infrequent drivers.

"You're heading the operation, " Leshii handed Yozh the folder he's been putting together. "However, once you're in Shamil's camp, you do as she says. "

"But say it quietly, " Zemfira addressed Dawn. "Chechens won't deal with a woman in charge."

"Your plane leaves tonight. Go pack."

"So much for my dry cleaning questions, " Dawn mumbled as she left the room with Zemfira.

"What?"

"This, " she took out the phone she found on her nightstand. "What is this?"

"It's your cell phone, " the witch answered.

"No, it's not. It's not even the same species. It's not even the same genus. It's the Australopithecus to my phone."

"We all have those. It has built-in encryption and I also enchanted each one as best as I could. You're not allowed to use any other phone, even for personal calls."

"Would it be easier if I just submit a script of my conversations for Leshii's approval beforehand?" Dawn smirked, "He seems to be having lots of fun reading my emails."

"Nobody is having fun reading that gibberish, trust me, " the vampire shot back. "Now go get your stuff together."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The weather delay was finally over and the last boarding call announcement was ringing the airport speakers. Dawn had to call on all her reservoir of self-restraint not to start jumping in giddiness. Not only is she on a First related assignment, she's actually co-leading it. Everything was going practically perfect. The little hiccup back in Kiev was just that, a small nasty necessity. Certainly worth the payoff it delivered. She picked up her purse off the counter, heavy with the revolver, and glanced back at the airport bathroom mirror. The teenager in the reflection happily returned her gleaming smile.

1I take it this isn't your blood? (spanish)

2'How many' is one word in Russian


	6. Chapter 6: War and Peace

**Chapter 6: War and Peace **

General Grishko cleared out the entire fourth floor for Yozh and his men, who in turn gave Dawn her own room. It was officers' room which meant just four bunks versus forty for the general enlisted, and a small wooden table with two chairs. The square window was divided into three panels none of which seemed to open, but it had a scenic view of the bombed out carcasses of downtown Grozny. At the moment, however, the snow storm was coming down so heavily it was impossible to see anything other than an ocean of snowflakes. Prior to her trip to Moscow Dawn has never seen real snow. Even on the coldest winter nights in Rome the best you could get is slush. She remembered her family going to Big Bear Mountain a few times while living in Los Angeles, but that snow was mostly made by snow machines, as fake as her memories of those trips. She sat at the window for hours watching the storm. The snowflakes would get thrown against the glass and stick for a few seconds, just long enough to get a good look. There was something soothing in their perfect crystal structure that went so well with the monotonous wail of the wind. Finally Dawn remembered why she stayed in her room today. She took out the spell book and her notes. The authentication spells were numerous, but which would be best in her situation? It had to be the right balance between effectiveness, her skills, and the available ingredients. "Blood of a virgin goat, " she read one of the candidates out loud. 'Virgin goat'? That's an odd requirement. Then again requiring blood of a non-virgin goat might make the ritual a lot more disturbing. She smirked to herself and continued to flip through the book. A straight arrow authentication spell might not suffice. What if Shamil double crosses them? Vengeance Demons tend to get picked from among promising amateur spell casters. Their trading partner might not have his powers anymore, but he's more than likely to have enough skill and knowledge remaining to make her assignment very troublesome. Hard assignments never frightened her, but in Math you can always be sure you're given enough information to figure out the problem. If only she knew what Shamil was like.

"Taking on an ex-Vengeance Demon, are you now? They are no pushovers. You are going to need help."

Dawn turned to see Anya. Xander's dead ex-finance was sporting a long flowery dress and a wavy light blonde hairdo. She looked just like Dawn remembered, with a decrepit dresser playing the part of the Magic Shop counter. The only thing missing was the cash register on top. The involuntary flash of joy at the familiar image was immediately drowned in geyser of self-loathing at her impotence. If her magics were stronger she could have used Zemfira's spell to keep a lid on appearances such as this, but as long as the First isn't appearing in the flesh she can't even use the uranium loaded pistol sitting on her desk.

"Maybe I need help, but not from you, " she replied turning back to her book. Perhaps the best approach would be to ignore It and hope It'll go away.

"Why not? I know everything there's to know about ex-Vengeance Demons."

"I'm sure you do. Makes lying about it so much easier."

"I don't lie, you lie, " the apparition sounded quite offended.

"I lie?"

"You took things from my shop without paying and lied about it. That's worse than Communists. They at least tell you when they take your stuff."

"Awesome, " Dawn mumbled. "The First is complaining about my ethics."

"Who is the First? I'm the First? I'm not the First!"

"Are you kidding me?" Dawn finally turned around. The clumsy way in which this deception was being handled was driving her up the wall.

"Well, I'm not!" The expression on Anya's face seemed to be mirroring Dawn's.

"Yes, you are."

"Am not!"

"Are, too!"

"Am not!"

"Stop it!" Dawn shouted, "Stop it now. This argument demeans us both!"

Anya threw up her hands. "So now you want me to leave?"

"Please."

"Fine. Whatever."

With these words Anya vanished as suddenly as she appeared leaving Dawn helplessly baffled at the absurdity of what has just transpired. The door opened to let Yozh in.

"I heard you shouting, " he asked glancing around the room.

"The First was just here."

"Fuck!" Yozh pulled out his shotgun and started fumbling for his 'anti-First' ammunition belt. What made It susceptible to radiation was still unclear to Dawn. The explanations ranged from Yozh's "who the fuck cares?" to Zemfira's "if you want a long winded recitation of the useless talk to Martin". A couple things were clear, though, the effects were discovered by accident and there's at least one important member of the team she hasn't met yet.

"It's alright, " Dawn waved Yozh off. "It's gone. You used a lot of that stuff on It, haven't you?" she pointed to the depleted uranium bullets Yozh was loading into his weapon.

"Define 'a lot'?"

"It's just the way It talked... Do you think radiation causes brain damage?"

"I don't know, " Yozh shrugged. "But it would explain the Ukrainians."

"Now it's Ukrainians? They are practically Russians!"

"They need more practice, " the gangster smirked.

Dawn just shook her head in disbelief. It felt like she was on Jerry Springfield special.

"Is there any ethnic group you don't hate?"

"I like Eskimos"

"What? Half the jokes you tell are about Eskimos!"

"So? Doesn't mean I don't like those fuzzy little dimwits," Yozh smiled as he watched Dawn's eyes almost fall out of their sockets.

"That's all folks, " she spoke, the volume of her voice getting progressively louder. "Get out. Whatever brain damage the First suffered, you clearly got the worst of it. Leave. Be gone. Now. Right, fucking now!"

The smile never left Yozh's face as he walked out of Dawn's room closing, not slamming the door behind him further confusing Bones who waited for him in the corridor.

"What the fuck, Yozh?"

"What?"

"Why isn't she spewing blood for mouthing off to you like that?"

Yozh nodded in a most understanding manner and putting his hand on the shoulder of the gangly man, pulled him a good foot down to his level.

"Bones, what can you tell me about that girl?"

"What?"

"What's the first thing you notice?"

"The tits."

"No. Well, yes, but let's come back to that later. How would you describe her?"

"She's foreign, " Bones answered, taking in a second.

"Good, " Yozh nodded encouragingly, "What else?"

"She's weird. She's spews acid every other sentence out of those luscious cock-sucking lips of hers."

"She does magic, " the fat man added.

"That's what I meant by weird."

"Good, " Yozh continued nodding. "Reminds you of somebody?"

Bones blinked for a couple of seconds.

"Zemfira, " he said a little unsure.

"Now add the tits."

"Shit!" Bones took a few steps backwards as he finally caught on to what Yozh was getting at. "Fuck! You think?"

"I don't know, but I'm not taking the chance that I'm beating up on the Boss's new lay. So whatever she says, as long as she doesn't fuck up the mission, I'm going to take with a big-as-a-horse's-ass-crack smile. I suggest you do the same." Yozh gave his underling a pat on the back and quickly took the stairs down to the exit. Judging by the growling of the engines their trucks have arrived.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was 9 o'clock in the morning when Buffy, still in her bathrobe, answered the knocking to find Andrew at her doorstep. The young man wore a long tweed overcoat with a dark sweater and pants. Black, blunt-nose shoes completed the "serious Watcher" look, but the goofy smile on his nineteen year old face totally ruined the ensemble.

"Willow, the comic relief is here, " Buffy called out.

"Shoo him away!" the witch yelled from the kitchen.

"Sorry, " she smiled and shut the door in his face.

"I have news!" Andrew yelled from the building hallway.

"He has news!" Buffy shouted into the kitchen.

"What kind of news?" Willow shouted back.

"Are they good news?" Buffy asked loudly with the door still shut.

"Kind of, " Andrew answered. "They aren't bad news."

"Not bad news," Buffy nodded approvingly, "That's already good," and she opened the door. "We're in the kitchen."

Quickly taking off his shoes, Andrew followed her. The kitchen smelled warm and toasty from the skillets on the stove. Willow was sitting at the small breakfast table with a bunch of computer printouts in her hand. In front of her was a plate of freshly made waffles.

"Cool, waffles! Ouch!" he exclaimed as Willow slapped away his hand. "First verbal abuse, now physical violence. She isn't turning evil again is she?" he whispered to Buffy.

"Nah. This isn't Evil Willow. This is an even rarer subspecies, a Surly Willow."

Turning the page Willow mumbled something deliberately unintelligible, and possibly obscene, in response. Buffy chuckled taking more waffles off the skillet. She extended the plate towards Andrew, but pulled back as soon he reached.

"News?"

"Oh, right, " the apprentice Watcher smiled sitting down next to Willow. "You remember you asked me to look into what Dawn took from the archive storage. You also remember, she wiped the computer records of the inventory. Three days ago I found the original paper copy in the data entry room."

"Yay paper," said Buffy finally setting the plate down for her guest.

"We're still in the middle of setting things up at the Academy, so it's very caveman-like over there. There's no index in the storage. I had to crawl through every nook and cranny of that cellar checking the items off the list one by one, but the call of duty has given me the strength of a hundred librarians." Andrew poured maple syrup all over his waffles and finding no fork or knife within reach crammed one into his mouth with hands. He then wiped his hands with a napkin and handed Buffy a piece of paper from his pocket.

"These are people's names, " she said a little confused. "She didn't take a bunch of shrunken human heads, did she?"

Andrew shook his head and tried to swallow enough of the waffle to allow him to speak. "No, the shrunken heads are safe in the spell supplies storage. She took personal notes and diaries belonging to these people. They are all Watchers killed by the Bringers last year. Except for Hawthorne. He died six years ago, but his diary was found among O'Connor's possession."

"O'Connor. Why do I know that name?"

"She was Stefka's Watcher. Hawthorne was one before her." Willow has just handed him the proper utensils and Andrew was now able to give prompt responses without interrupting his waffle intake.

"What about the others?" asked Buffy scanning the list for anything familiar.

"Some of them didn't have any Potentials, and the others, well..."

"Have dead ones, " she finished for him. "Stefka would be the logical place to start then. Maybe she can remember something about her Watchers that would link them to Leshii."

"Odds are nothing, " Andrew grimaced noticing several syrup stains on his sweater and grabbed for the napkin. "Seems to me Dawn only wanted one item. She took what lay near so that we couldn't find out what she was really after. It's fascinating how beautifully her mind works."

"When it works. Which is not that often, " Buffy mumbled. "Well?" this was addressed to Willow.

"We're definitely missing something, " the witch answered still staring at the papers. "I'm going to read it again."

"It won't help, " Buffy turned off the stove and sat in the chair across from Andrew. "I read it three times and it only became weirder and weirder. Who are these people? Where are these places? She makes no sense at all."

"She mentions Richard III. I know him. I have no idea who Daft Red is. Or is it a capitalization error? No, it makes even less sense as a phrase."

"Richard III and Daft Red?, " Andrew repeated sipping a just poured cup of tea, "That is weird. I don't remember them being in the same scene."

"What scene? You know who Daft Red is?"

Andrew shriveled a tad under the sudden and intent stare of both women.

"Who doesn't?" He blurted out defensively. "He's a pretty memorable recurring character."

"It's a TV show?"

"Blackadder. We are not talking about Blackadder? I thought we were talking about Blackadder."

"Baldrick, Kryten, Kochanski?" Willow read out names sprinkled in the email.

"Willow, I think you are totally confused. The last two are from Red Dwarf. It's a completely different show. They are literally three million light years apart."

"Well, at least she is not crazy," the redhead turned to Buffy.

"Yes, she is, " the Slayer replied not appreciating the apparent breakthrough. "Why is she writing me quotes from shows she knows I've never seen?"

"Who's writing? What are we talking about? I thought we were talking about Blackadder."

"Dawn has been writing letters to Buffy, " Willow handed Andrew the printouts. "They seem to be full of quotes and allusions to characters from these shows, and, probably, a few others."

"Oh. Maybe she's writing them to me? What? We're tight! We're like that!"

Buffy and Willow exchanged glances once again except this time the witch seemed pensive.

"He might be on to something, " she said uncertainly picking up one of the pages. "What if it's code? Think about it. We know Leshii has been fighting it out with the First, but he never told you that. Even now that we know he refuses to discuss it. If he's deliberately trying to keep us out of the loop then it would make sense that he's censoring Dawn's letters, too. If she were to write in obvious code he probably wouldn't let any of them through, but for someone who doesn't know which shows you watch and which you don't there's nothing suspicious about these references. The fact that she's mixing together different shows makes me think I'm right. You need to look at the original, analyze the similarities and differences in the context of our current situation and then you might get what Dawnie is hinting at. Or not."

"I'll help!"

Buffy took a long look at the eager volunteer. "Andrew, I never thought I'd say this, but I need to borrow your DVD collection."

"This is going to be so awesome!" Andrew practically jumped off his chair. "We'll do marathons! Blackadder Tuesdays! Red Dwarf Thursdays! And Fridays, there's a lot more episodes. Saturdays, we'll reserve for Flying Circus, of course. The three of us will have so much fun!"

"Three?" the witch repeated apprehensively.

"Three, " Buffy punctuated the word. "You're going to be soaking in every second of that British humor-like-thing."

Willow leaned back in her chair arms crossed, her face reverting to the initial surly expression that greeted Andrew half an hour ago.

"When that girl gets back she's going to be in so much trouble," she grumbled.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Their column, three trucks and two jeeps have been traveling across the plains for almost two days. Dawn has not seen or heard any battles, but war was everywhere. As was life. A just repaired village hut next to the burned out ruins of another. Carcasses of trucks and troop carriers dragged to the curb to make room for new vehicles traversing the treacherous roads. Even the forests were filled with trees cut down by artillery fire, yet never so many together as to form a clearing in the heavy growth that Spring was beginning to fill out. As horrid and as scared as the land looked it didn't look dead, just sick. As they got closer to the mountains the villages became rarer and more desolate. Russian roadblocks became more fortified; the number of troops patrolling each one has tripled. The roads were largely unpaved and the heavy trucks would barely do more than twenty kilometers an hour, on a good hour. Driving at such a slow pace, they would avoid making camp, but drive through the night, taking shifts. Never having learned to drive properly Buffy didn't own a car and Dawn's experience was limited to a few hours she could sneak here and there in the Club's Citroen. Of the three girls officially sanctioned to drive the vehicle Kate was the only one constantly out of money. At twenty euros a pop she gave Dawn several secret lessons, not once failing to berate the girl's wide turns and the flimsiness of French engineering in the most colorful mixture of Italian and German expletives. Having some experience with a manual transmission proved handy here and along with sharpening her shooting skills at makeshift ranges, she quickly picked up trucking. That night a snowstorm closed the pass and they camped out near an oil well. The production was shut down, but the structure was completely intact. Virtually none of the metal cranes Dawn passed on the way were damaged. Tanks and artillery, mortars and truck bombs have annihilating most cities and villages, but both sides took special care to preserve as much of the oil infrastructure as possible. You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Dawn tried to fall asleep in the back of the jeep, but her mind kept wondering. In particular she was thinking back to her conversations with Leshii. He seemed to know way too much about the particulars of their experience in Sunnydale. Even if he had the Clubhouse bugged, he still knew too many little details to have pieced them from random overhead conversations. He must have an informant on the inside. Stefka? No, she's too loyal to Buffy and her sister-slayers. Even assuming she loves her brother more she is seriously distraught by what he does and she wouldn't do anything to encourage him. There must be someone else, but who? The explosions not too far away interrupted her train of thought. She threw on her overcoat, grabbed her gun belt and ran out of the car. Yozh was sitting a couple meters away in front of the camp fire, with a military radio to his ear.

"What's happening?" she called out.

"The usual, " said the gangster putting down the thick rectangular contraption. "They stormed into a village north of here. Took supplies, cut up the elder and his family. Now the feds and the local posies trying to chase the dogs down."

Dawn sat down next to the fat man and reached out with her palms to the fire.

"The family, huh? Burrowing a page from Leshii's book, I see," she mumbled.

"They don't have no fucking book, " Yozh bristled. "They're bloodthirsty fucks, that's all. Anyone can kill a bunch of kids. It's about doing something once in such a way that you won't have to do it again. That's what we do. That takes thinking. These dogs have blood feuds going back centuries. All in the price now, just part of the lives they live. Nobody here is impressed by nothing no more. A week from now another elder will come from the plains. He won't be alone. He'll bring his wife and kids, and brothers, and cousins, and their kids. Pays enough. There is a lot of money to be made here, but no easy money. " Yozh took a gulp out of a large khaki colored flask and handed it to Dawn. She took a sip. Harsh alcoholic brew burned the roof of her mouth. Whatever it was it was stronger than vodka. Probably some local moonshine Yozh picked up in Grozny.

"Is it true that none of you, guys, have any families?" she handed back the flask grimacing.

"Nobody in the field. Some of the retired ones, who served out their term and cached in, they got wives and kids, and all, but nobody active does. No ties, no blackmail, no way to Leshii."

"So what happened to your family?"

Yozh gave her a short look trying to decide if this strange girl was trying to get something or just making conversation, but figuring the information was worth nothing anyway, answered.

"Mom died shortly after I got out of the Colony, and dad, I don't know where the fuck he is. Nor do I care. Yours?"

"Same. Our mom died almost three years ago. The divorce was five years before. Dad has been visiting less and less, and we haven't seen him at all the last four years. He called a few times. Last time we heard from him he was in Spain. Rome is a lot closer than Sunnydale, but Buffy said we shouldn't look for him."

"She's right, " Yozh nodded approvingly. "Fuck the deadbeat."

"I found him anyway, " Dawn continued. "He has a condo in Barcelona with his girlfriend. I have the address and the phone. I even dialed it once. Almost. Hung up before the last digit."

"Leave it the fuck alone. There's no good there."

"But don't you want to know?" Dawn turned to the fat man who has now really taken to the liquor. "If there was a good reason he left, wouldn't you want to know? Or, even if there wasn't, maybe he's sorry. Maybe he's a different man now."

Yozh pulled the flask away from his lips and shook it verifying there was nothing left.

"If he is a different man now, than why, the fuck, would I want to go look for him somewhere out there when there are millions of men different from the one that left me walking just outside my fucking window?"

Dawn laughed. The level of sophistication of the joke took her by surprise coming from Yozh. As boorish as he acts, he's probably got a good head on his shoulders or he wouldn't have risen as far as he has. She should keep that in mind.

"That's clever, " she nodded appreciatively.

"Hey, I'm not all looks, " he grinned back.

Noises in the distance died down and so did the conversation. She has never actually seen her father. Not really, just a decade worth of artificial memories. Does that make him her father? He's Buffy's father, which sort of makes him her father, at least in the DNA sense. It's the oddest feeling, to so miss something you never had. Who is that man living in Barcelona? They spoke a few times on the phone after her mother died. He seemed so detached, never even offering to come. The fire breathed and crackled beneath Dawn's open palms, the tiny wisps of smoke rising through her fingers. She felt so strange watching it. It was as though each shape of the flame invoked a memory, but of what she could not tell because it was too quickly replaced by another shape with a memory of its own. On and on, always just beyond her grasp. What if the spell didn't work on him as well as the others? Her presence might have reinforced the fake affection implanted in her mother and sister, made it real, but her father never had the opportunity. He remembers her, but does not love her. Does she love him? Maybe that's why it's so easy for her to forgive. He couldn't hurt her the way he hurt his real daughter. Buffy hates him so much because she loves him.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They moved on in the morning as the storm died down for a while. Probably hung over from last night Yozh was in a foul mood, swearing at the weather. The snow storm, almost certainly the last of the season, came in unusually late and hard, bogging them down in this God forsaken country for much longer than he was planning on. All the checkpoints were behind them, but what the road lacked in soldiers it made up in dips and bumps, and fallen branches. They were already two days behind and falling further. The sky was still covered in gray low hanging clouds threatening to burst open at any moment. Just as Dawn started to wonder if they'd be able to keep up the improved pace till noon the first day's trickle of snowflakes started to come down. Grinding a swear through his teeth Yozh slowed down the jeep.

"It's not that bad," said Dawn surprised.

"It's worse. Up ahead, by the curb, " the gangster replied taking his hand off the gear shift and adjusting the gun holster. Now she saw him. A figure in gray and white camouflage was flagging them down a few hundred feet ahead.

"There aren't supposed to be any checkpoints here, " she said half stating half asking. Yozh didn't reply. As they got closer a view of a small village, perhaps two dozen houses, opened up. The man signaled them to get off the road. A little further down stood two more similarly uniformed men with rifles on the ready, and further still stood a helicopter with another man standing guard.

"Paratroopers. They must be part of last night's pursuit. The storm damaged their chopper. Fucking weather!" Yozh slammed his hand on the wheel as he parked the jeep. "Stay in the car," he barked at Dawn and jumped out. It was immediately clear the paratroopers were not in a friendly mood. Perhaps, they were also frustrated by the weather, perhaps something else, but they ordered everyone out of their vehicles and disarmed them before asking for papers. Dawn heard Yozh dutifully protest, then quickly comply. Everything, from the uniforms they wore to the papers they were issued, came directly from general Grishko and thus were completely legit. They may still be able to ride this out without excesses. A man emerged from one of the houses. Tall, in his late twenties he was dressed in the same camouflaged pants with a military overcoat hastily thrown over a white wifebeater. Judging by the three stars on the shoulder straps and the immediate attention he commanded, the captain was in charge of this unit. Another man, similarly underdressed, emerged from a doorway two houses down. Two stars. Must be a lieutenant. The captain waved him towards the trucks while he took Yozh's id papers and manifest.

"Where are you heading to?" he asked in a strict tone, moving his eyes from the gangster to the papers.

"To the pass, captain. It's all there."

"There are no troops at the pass, " said the captain suspiciously.

"They are probably bringing them by chopper, " Yozh answered quickly. "Land convoy takes longer so they sent us ahead. By the time we drag our asses there, they'll probably be in the middle of battle already."

"What battle?"

"How should I know? I'm just the supply guy."

"Grishko's supply guy. The general's inventory has a knack for falling down cliffs, sinking into rivers, and otherwise disappearing up the Devil's ass, then turning up in his hands to mow down my boys."

"I'm just following orders," said Yozh in the last ditch hope that appearing ignorant and meek would placate the paratrooper. It didn't.

"I'm not," The captain crumbed the manifest in his fist and threw it into the snow. "Grishko is infantry, he has no authority over me and I don't like him. I don't like any of this. I don't like your papers, sergeant Bronin, I don't like you, and I sure as hell don't like her, " he growled pointing to Dawn. "She is not even Russian, is she? That smug, fucking face. She's probably one of those Amnesty cock-suckers. What, are you waiting for, a special invitation, bitch? Get out of the fucking car! How much did you get for bringing a fucking reporter here, you dipshit?"

"Relax, bro'," Yozh answered in his normal tone realizing a change of approach was called for. "It's all good. Nobody's reporting nothing. She's not reporting, you are not reporting. Nobody's reporting. You don't like my papers? That's cool. I got others, small, green ones. Lot's of them."

Dawn wasn't paying attention to the conversation. She has passed these small congregations of houses on the road many times. Sometimes they were whole, sometimes burned out shells, but always far away. This was the first time she has come face to face with the inhabitants, and she could not take her eyes away. As much as she wanted to she couldn't. Among the ruins of Grozny life was poor and dirty, but it was life. Here all there was was death. She could see it in the empty gaze of an old man who slowly dragged a corpse of a woman, leaving behind a long bloody trail. It weaved like an unsteady brush stroke from the village square to a porch of a house where two more bodies lay covered by an old piece of camouflage fabric. From the old man, her eyes traveled to the young woman who was peaking out of the house the captain came out of. In the black eye that easily blended into her broken nose Dawn saw the same bottomless pit of despair. She thought she heard the captain yelling for her to leave the truck, but she didn't answer. She kept watching the woman as she slowly and aimless drifted out of the open door. She just stood there, shivering from the cold, her partially torn dress tossed mercilessly by the wind. The captain was yelling at Yozh. She couldn't tell what they were saying. Her mind seemed to fog up and her senses leaving her, except for her eyesight. In the black pupils of the young woman eighty feet away she thought she could see her reflection.

"Captain!" Dawn shouted jumping out of the truck. The paratrooper turned around, almost bumping his face into the barrel of her gun. He didn't even have time to swear. As the captain's body collapsed Dawn walked forward, firing, hitting the soldier guarding the chopper twice. The third member of the patrol was behind her, but as she turned she saw Yozh on top of the soldier strangling him with his own Kalashnikov. The gangsters at the end of the convoy were caught off guard by Dawn's actions as much as the soldiers, but outnumbering them more than three to one immediately gained an upper hand. The lieutenant was the last to fall into the snow as Bones slit his throat from behind. Breathing heavily Yozh got off his man and turned to Dawn. His hands were shaking either from exertion or the burning rage that has lit up his face. He moved towards her, but machine gun fire sent them both down to the ground. Dawn could see him through the bulletproof glass of the chopper cabin. Dressed in just his camouflage pants, the half naked paratrooper kept all of them pinned down with short bursts of fire as he dashed between houses, trying to make his way towards the helicopter. The guns were everywhere. The trucks were full of them, the jeeps. There was pile of them in the snow just twenty feet away where the patrolmen made the gangsters disarm as they inspected their papers. Fifteen feet away were the dead patrolmen themselves, with their Kalashnikovs and side arms. All of it worthless. One of Bones' men tried to dash to the nearest rifle, but was cut down immediately. The soldier's aim was impeccable, even on the run. Effectively the only gun they had was Dawn's revolver and it only had two bullets left. She must wait until he gets closer. How close? The angle of the cabin no longer allowed her to see his approach. He could climb into the cabin on the other side, or attack her by going around the tail section. She cocked her gun and held her breath. A shallow sound of impact almost made her pull the trigger. A painful groan followed, then another hit. Dawn watched Yozh rise and followed. The paratrooper was already dead, but his bloodied corpse was still being pummeled with snow shovels by two old women. Spitting and cursing they kept landing the blows to his head and back until the old gravedigger who Dawn spotted earlier came for his duty. The dead are dead, they don't have sides.

"Who's down?" Yozh yelled towards approaching Bones.

"A few guys got grazed. Rooster got one through his shoulder. He'll live, but we are short a driver."

"I can drive, " Dawn walked towards them shoving her revolver into the holster clipped to her back pocket. It slipped out and fell into the snow as Yozh lifted her with his massive arms and jammed her against the helicopter.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, you psycho bitch?"

"They weren't buying your fake papers, " Dawn answered calmly though a bit muffled as the gangster's hands were pressing hard on her diaphragm.

"That's what the fucking money is for!"

"Then I guess I saved us twenty grand." Dawn's voice was eerie quiet. Her life was guaranteed by Leshii, let the fat bastard fume all he wants.

"You stupid cunt! These weren't some draftee's that can be killed on a whim! They are paratroopers! Somebody owns them. Somebody who'll come looking for them and us!" He let her drop to the ground and kicked the chopper wheel in frustration.

"As if Leshii cares," she scoffed, brushing off the snow as she got up.

"The word gets out we are dealing in someone else's territory, not sharing the proceeds, and shooting up the owner's people it will fuck up our reputation. Your brain explosion will cost Leshii millions of dollars in deals that will never happen! He'll care about that."

"Whatever, it's between me and him," Dawn finally found her gun a few feet away and tried for the second time to put it in the holster.

"Oh, I'm sure you have skills and positions saved up just for situations like these, only I'll be the one fucked up the ass for letting you pull this shit!"

Yozh spat angrily in her direction. Dawn simply shrugged.

"Back to the missing driver, do you want me take Rooster's shift or not?"

The girl's calm attitude prevailed. With no fuel to feed Yozh's anger and pressing matters to attend to the Russian has finally cooled down.

"Take the trucks up the road. Bones and I will stay behind to make sure there aren't anymore soldiers left. We'll catch up in the jeep. The snow storm is getting stronger, it'll slow us down, but it might also cover our tracks, " he sighed looking at paratroopers' corpses, then threw up his hands and shook his head in disbelief at everything that transpired in the last ten minutes. "If you overturn your truck you better pray you die in it!" The threat wasn't real, but the anger still was. That's alright; she didn't come to Leshii to make friends. She looked over to the house. The woman was still standing on the porch. The snow was getting thicker, but Dawn thought she saw tears coming down her cheeks.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They were barely ten feet inside the club house when Willow made a quick one eighty.

"I changed my mind. I don't want to be here."

"What are you talking about?" Buffy scoffed grabbing her by the sleeve. "You never wanted to come, I'm making you."

"Then I don't want to be made anymore," the witch whined.

"You can't lounge around the apartment forever; you'll have to face them soon or later."

"Okay, I'll do it later, " Willow pulled her shirt free, but before she could take a single Buffy grabbed her by the shoulders lifted her in the air and turned her around before putting her back on the floor.

"They are not going to bite, they like you."

"They hate me."

"They love you. You were their favorite person right from the start. The one woman welcoming committee? The balloons, and the welcome baskets with muffins, and fruit, and soy cookies? They hated the cookies, but they loved you!" Buffy gave her friend a light nudge in the back trying to get her walking again, but the redhead was not cooperating.

"They are going to give me that look, I know it. The 'you-are-about-to-ruin-my-life' look."

"They're teenage girls, Will, they give everybody that look."

"No, please. I want to go home, " the whining was getting to be unbearable.

"Half an hour, " said Buffy giving Willow's hand and encouraging squeeze. "I'll yell at Alice, you'll pick up the supplies from the storage, and then we'll leave. Half an hour, max, okay?"

"Half hour and I'm teleporting out."

"Fine. Wait for me here. And no making yourself invisible, I'll know!" Buffy walked quickly towards the small conference room glancing behind every so often to make sure Willow was holding up her end of the bargain. Then again for all she knew, Willow could have cast an invisibility spell that worked on everyone, but her. Buffy sighed. One of the worst parts about being a leader is that everyone's problems are your problems. There's one in the room right now.

"I don't know what your malfunction is this time, but I've had enough!" she shouted at Alice right from the conference room doorway. Caught totally off guard, the girl nearly fell of the chair she was reclining in. Buffy slammed the door shut and continued. "How you talk to her in the dorms and at the lunch table is your business, but when your superior officer gives you a combat order you obey it!"

"She is not my superior!" Alice shot back and immediately bit her tongue. Yelling at Buffy was exactly the opposite of what she wanted to do. The girl walked over to the Slayer stopping a respectful three feet in front. The posture, hands folded behind her back and the half a meter distance between her feet had four generations of military service written all over it. She was a few inches taller than Buffy, as was pretty much everyone, and the tight t-shirt emphasized her somewhat broad shoulders and nicely toned arms. Short ash-colored hair were pulled back around her round face and her blunt chin seemed even more square now that the expression of willful stubbornness spread to her other features as well. "We're at war against the First, " Alice tried to speak calmer, but it wasn't easy. "She has never faced it, I did. I fought It in Sunnydale with you, not her. I have the necessary experience..."

"For the hundredth time, you are not getting Stefka's job! She has been my assistant for months and she's doing great."

"No, she isn't! Everybody hates her!"

"Dawn likes her."

"Dawn is not her student."

"Exactly, " Buffy poked the air with her finger. "She has no reason to be jealous. I can't say I've been to most of the classes, but from what I've seen she's the best instructor we have. Better than you."

"There's more to being a teacher than pounding a bunch of Karate moves into their students' heads!"

"That's why I called her an instructor. Parreli is your teacher."

"He can't teach what it's like to be a Slayer. Only you can. But if you are going to pass on teaching us, you should hand the class over to someone who can educate in the same spirit. I could have stayed in the America with the others, but I followed you and..."

"You gave up Cleveland for Rome? Oh, the sacrifice!"

"It could have been anywhere! Remember when we went to pick up Dasha and Giles said that geographically Odessa is the best city to setup an office?"

"That place made Cleveland look good."

"Where you would be is all that mattered to me. We all look up to you, Buffy, but Stefka isn't teaching us to be like you. Whatever reverence towards you she expresses verbally, she is teaching the opposite!"

"Maybe she's right, " Buffy shrugged.

"How can you say that? Even with a thousand of us now, you are going to go down as the greatest Slayer in history!"

"Now I'm going down? You are not planning to stop at Stefka's job, are you?"

"No, that's not.."

"I was the Chosen ONE, Alice. I made the best of it. A hundred Buffys under the same roof is a riot waiting to happen. Whatever responsibilities I was willing to share, whatever advice I was willing to accept, it was always on my terms. You can't be like that, each one an island onto herself. Not if we want to do something special."

"That's what I keep saying! It should be your vision, not hers! You can trust me to see it through."

"I don't have one, that's the point!" Buffy screamed inside her head. "That's why I stopped coming to the office. I started this and I don't know what it is. There is something here that is so much more than just a Slayer times a thousand and only that strange prayer-happy girl seems to see it. Maybe that's why she sees it and I don't." The pause grew long.

"Stefka is part of my vision, " she finally responded. "I like what she's doing and I like her. You don't have to like her, but you will show her respect, and next time she gives you an order, you say, 'Yes, ma'am'. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Alice rang out loudly.

"Dismissed "

The girl quickly left the room. Buffy followed after her, shaking her head in disappointment. She knew Alice was too stubborn and ambitious to be derailed by a simple conversation, but she hoped she could at least shout her into temporary compliance. Now she wasn't sure she achieved even that. She watched as the girl stormed by Willow, then realizing who it was she just passed, turned, mumbled something greeting-like, then disappeared in the stairwell.

"I did not care for that 'Hi'", said Willow as Buffy came closer.

"It's not you, " the Slayer quickly answered noticing the upset notes in her voice. "It was all me. With the yelling and the berating. Wasn't fun for either of us. Do you yell at your students?"

"Only when they sleep with my girlfriend."

Buffy smiled and took Willow's hand in hers. "Almost done. Let's go get those supplies."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy was a woman of her word. In less than an hour after leaving it, they were back at the apartment, picking up where they left off last night. Buffy was in front of her laptop going through the latest reports, while Willow was in front of hers supposedly working on her latest spell. She wasn't, not for hours. She wasn't even looking at her computer. Willow was a lone child, which is different from being an only child. Her parents, both prominent psychiatrists spent their time giving speeches at various child rearing seminars around the country, well assured that the worst thing their quiet, overachieving daughter was capable of was inexplicable, but harmless friendship with that neighborhood nitwit, Xander Harris. It was always a tug of war between her desire for human contact and her fear of it, fear of losing it, once she had it. It was the reason she aced the achievement test to skip the 5th grade and enter Middle school at the same time as Xander. It was the same reason she sabotaged the next two tests her parents arranged: she didn't want to get promoted past him. What a different life it would have been then. She would have entered Harvard at fifteen, had her doctorate by now, getting started on her parents' dream of saving the world from Malaria by the age of forty. Forty. She will only turn twenty two next week and this is already the eighth apocalypse she's trying to stave off. Well, seventh. The one she started herself probably shouldn't count. All because she met this little blonde, then brunette, eight years ago. She tore down the narrow walls of her existence and gave her a life of so much wonder and meaning; and she gave her the strength to live in it. She still does. Every word, every embrace, and even an occasional shove, all meant to make her better. Are making her better. They might only be one year apart, but Buffy is the older sister Willow always dreamed of. Barely controlling the urge to hug the hell of her Willow continued to quietly watch her friend. The mid afternoon sun shinning through the window was playing softly in Buffy's hair as she read at the kitchen table. She let it grow again and now the banks were seriously overhanging her forehead, getting in front of her eyes. Buffy didn't make much effort to correct the situation only occasionally blowing them to the side. The extra work prevented her from falling asleep as she read another one of Kim's tortuously long reports. Finally her frequent groans of frustration were beginning to turn into sobs.

"That bad?" Willow asked.

"The last half a page was about different levels of dust on the rocks and what each additional millimeter signifies. I mean, literally."

"It's your own fault," the witch replied in her usual, 'I-told-you-so' voice. "He's almost five times older than you. You should have been politer when telling him to be more thorough."

"Where does he find the time to write all of this? Is there some kind of report generating spell?"

"No, just the magic of apprenticeship. Do you think my professor at Sunnydale U ever typed more than three sentences in a row?"

"Apprentices, " Buffy sighed. "I could use a couple of those."

"'A couple'? You have a thousand of them running around the world killing demons for you!"

"Lucky brats."

"No one is stopping you from doing more fieldwork."

"I can't leave. I'm having trouble keeping myself in the loop as it is. I keep having to remind people to send me their reports and when they finally do, anything useful is buried under six tons of crap!"

"So there is something useful there then?"

"Sort of," Buffy shrugged, "The men Kim caught in Bangladesh trying to blow the dig site worked for Leshii. Apparently he had crews working every one of those dig sites, but after the Peru thing, they made with the fireworks. Leshii is deliberately trying to make sure we are not in the game. It stinks. Double so with Dawn there."

"Maybe Dawn's right and he just thinks we're incompetent and will screw things up."

"I don't believe in that whole plan-a-decade-ahead-master-plan bullshit for a minute," said Buffy with a contemptuous hand wave, "Thinking your enemy smarter than it is can be just as dangerous as underestimating it. I'm not saying the First is stupid, It's not, but this could easily be nothing more than bad luck. For starters, how would the First know what the effect of the Slayer making spell would be? It has never been done before, so how could It know? Leshii's theory, assuming it's really what he thinks, has got more holes than Havarti."

"I think it's Swiss cheese."

"No, Swiss cheese doesn't have that many holes. It has the biggest holes, but on the subject of quantity it suffers. Compared with American cheeses, cheddar, or Monterey Jack, Swiss cheese might have been the hole master, but here, on the continent of cheese plenty I refuse to remain willfully ignorant. There's no cheese with more holes than Havarti and it's about time it was given its due!"

"Into every generation, a Slayer is born," Willow began reciting wistfully. "One girl in all the world, a Chosen One, one with the strength and skill to safeguard the pride and dignity of cheese."

"I'm sorry, but a world without cheese is not a world worth saving. Besides, like you said, I got a thousand peons now to deal with the boring apocalypse stuff."

"Exactly, and if I remember correctly you got the idea for the Slayer making spell after talking with the First. That should have been a big fat clue. The amulet, too. If Wolfram&Hart knew what it did so should have the First, It had to. Yet It let us walk right into Its lair without a fight. It was all just too easy. It wanted us there."

"Easy? People died to win that battle! And if the First knew about the amulet why didn't It go after Spike later? There were a good twenty minutes after the Slayer spell was finished and the time the amulet became active. It should have ignored us and sent all the uber-vamps after Spike. I'd like to think we'd be able to keep them off him anyway, but It didn't even try. Now either the First is really bad at battlefield strategy or It didn't know what you think It knew."

"There's a third possibility. It needed us to stay alive to do something else. Something we haven't done yet and that's why It's not attacking us here despite us having no weapons to fight It with."

"Something like gaining twenty pounds eating ice-cream all day?"

"Hey!"

"I've had enough!" Buffy slammed shut her laptop. "I'm going out. Are you coming with me?"

"I don't think it's appropriate to invite me where you are going," the redhead grumbled.

"It's not like all we do is have sex. Fine, we'll go some place else, just the two of us. How about a movie?"

"At three o'clock in the afternoon?"

"You are going to turn down everything I'll propose, aren't you?"

Willow didn't say anything, but the answer was clear.

"Fine, " Buffy snapped. She grabbed her handbag off the coffee table and headed towards the door. "I'm out of here. Hey, Watcher, watch her!"

"You can count on me!" Andrew yelped from the couch.

"What? I'm not fifteen, I don't need a babysitter!" Willow shouted to the closing door.

"Fifteen?" Andrew raised an eye brow.

"I had overprotective parents. Shut up, or I'll turn you into a toad!"

"You've been turning a lot of things into other things lately that's why Buffy won't leave you alone anymore."

"Whatever, " Willow mumbled feeling increasingly bitchy. "Why are you even here? Isn't your vacation over?"

"It's my free study semester and what better place for me to study fighting evil than with the Slayer and her uber-witch best friend."

Willow glanced at the TV then back at boy.

"What? It's on mute!"

"You can watch your little soaps at your apartment, Andrew."

"Buffy won't let me get another one."

"Another?"

"My girlfriends sort of burned down the one I had."

"Well! Serves you right for two-timing!"

"I'm not two-timing!" the apprentice watcher protested. "They are followers of Stralik, the two headed demon. They always do stuff in pairs. And Buffy won't sign my expense checks until I dump them. So totally unfair! I know she's the Slayer, and all, but she has no right interfering in my personal life. They are nice girls."

"Who burned down your apartment."

"They thought my Klingon exhibit was an altar of a rival demon. It was an honest mistake, a simple cultural misunderstanding, why can't anyone get past that? Don't worry, they are not coming here, they are afraid of you."

"Me?" repeated Willow taken aback.

"Who else? Buffy doesn't skin people alive."

"One person. One! Why can't anyone get past that?"

"I did. I like you now."

"You do?"

"Sure. I even got you a birthday present. I won't say what it is, but it's pretty cool."

"Really? Wait, it's not a light saber or something, is it?"

"I'm afraid you'll just have to wait and find out."

Willow looked over to the grinning boy. It could have been worse, Buffy could have called Stefka over again. "Do you want to unmute that?" she nodded towards the television plunking herself down on the couch next to him.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Willow was being totally unfair about them. She and Mortimer do a lot of things together. They have great conversations. He makes her laugh all the time and he tells so many wonderful stories. Being a history Buff, as Xander refuses to stop calling her, it's so exciting to speak to someone who crossed the Rubicon with Caesar and double dated with Casanova. They go to movies together, too, and Mortimer can certainly hold his own on the ice-skating rink. Clearly, they have a well-developed and rounded relationship. Naturally, as with any well-rounded relationship, a certain amount of physical...

"Oh!" Mortimer groaned, gently, but firmly pushing Buffy off him interrupting her train of thought, among other things. "That's it. I tried to be a man and take what you dish, but this time I'm pretty sure you broke my rib."

"What are talking about?" she bristled. "You are invincible!"

"No, I'm immortal, there's a difference," he grumbled softly feeling his side. The pause grew a bit long and Mortimer looked up to see Buffy sternly staring him down. The fact that she was nude hugging a giant pillow made the situation a lot less tense than she meant it to be.

"You told me you can't be killed, " she said getting more annoyed at his smile. "If you can be hurt, then you can be killed."

"Well, technically I can be killed. I have been killed. I have lost count of how many times I got killed. It's just that it doesn't stick. As soon as I die I just get resurrected in an identical body somewhere else. Don't ask me how it works, I have no idea, nobody does. That's my big power, if you will. The body itself is just as fragile as any other human body."

For a moment the skeptical look on Buffy's face signaled an upcoming sarcastic remark of some sort when it suddenly changed into something Mortimer never expected to see: panic.

"Wait. Human? How human?"

"What?"

"Oh my God! We're the same species!"

"And that's bad?"

"You idiot!" she screamed jumping off the bed. "We haven't been using anything! Oh my God!" She grabbed for her clothes, but they were falling out of her hands. "What day is it?"

"Buffy..."

She wasn't listening. She kept turning the top over in her hands trying to locate the front. "Which makes it...five weeks? No, three weeks. No, wait..."

"Buffy..."

"Don't interrupt me when I'm counting!"

"Buffy, it's alright, it's taking care of."

"What?"

"I've got it covered, on my end."

"Your end? Oh. The snippety-snip," Buffy felt herself calming somewhat. At least to the point of being capable of putting on her clothes without too much trouble. She picked up her jeans off the nightstand and starred down her man. An actual man, apparently. "You are not lying to me, are you?"

"Of course not, " Mortimer gently pulled her back on the bed, caressing her shoulders, and kissed her neck to calm her down. "It's the first thing I do when wake up in the new body."

"You start each new life with a vasectomy?"

"If I weren't taking precautions half the world population would be my progeny by now. When I'm making love, the last thing I want to think about, is whether or not the girl is my great-great-granddaughter. I might not be the most moral person on this planet, but even I have lines I don't cross. I bend them, I push them, I might even turn them ninety degrees, but I never cross them."

This self-deprecating boastfulness just works so well for him. Buffy smiled, shoving him playfully away. Mortimer's smile immediately turned into pained grin.

"Sorry! You really are hurt, aren't you? I'm so sorry." She helped him upright and expertly felt up his torso for the injury. "It's actually all your fault you know."

"How is it my fault?"

"Easy! This wouldn't happen if you were communicating with me like a normal person, instead of playing hide and seek with every single piece of intell," she grumbled grabbing his shirt and tying it around his midsection.

"You break my rib, you make me feel guilty for you breaking my rib, and you called me an idiot. Do you know what the strangest part in all of this is? I think I love you even more."

She heard him. He knew it from the way her hands paused momentarily, then tagged on the sleeves again, tightening the makeshift support.

"I love you, Buffy, " he repeated.

"Me and what army?" she tried to joke her way out.

"You just love to ride me, don't you?"

"I think we both enjoy that"

"I'm serious, " he lifted her head up to meet his eyes. "I love you."

"What do you know of love?" she scoffed

"Do you really think love is exclusive to human souls?"

"Not anymore, but it's not what I meant. Love is sacrifice, and rib for sex doesn't count."

"Works for you, but what about six billion other people?"

Buffy adjusted the shirt girdle one last time then sat down on the bed next to Mortimer.

"It doesn't have to be life and death stuff. It could be anything, anything important to you. It could be money a kid spent on a necklace that he was saving up for a skateboard. It could be the girl giving up good graces of her family and friends to stand up for her man. It could be time, putting aside your ambitions to let your girl follow her destiny."

"I get that."

"I don't think you do." The tone of Buffy's voice was not one he expected to accompany a rejection. She wasn't angry, or upset, or sarcastic. She was serious; simply serious. "You are immortal, time means nothing to you. Neither does money. You've got no family or friends that I know of, and the only ambition you seem to have is me. Love is not pain, but pain is part of it, it's what elevates love above ordinary pleasure. What is your pain?"

"Just because I haven't had a chance to suffer for you, you think I can't love you?"

"I don't know," she shrugged.

"Is that why you don't love me? Because you are unsure of me?" Mortimer pressed on.

Is that it? She has never seen this relationship going past the 'fun' stage. Why not? Too early? She looked up at her boyfriend face, examining the look of concerned curiosity permeating its extraordinary handsome features.

"First off we've only been dating for two months. For a million year old you are not very patient."

"Don't you feel anything for me?"

"I like you," she responded on autopilot, without thinking. The words echoed pleasantly in her head. "I like you a lot," she added and smiled: she wasn't lying. "How's that?"

Mortimer's face mirrored her smile as he nodded approvingly.

"It's a start"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The weather turned from bad to worse. The high winds and almost constant snow meant the convoy could hardly move. In the last three days they covered sixty kilometers at the most. With so much downtime Dawn's offer to pick up the driving shift became moot and she ended up back in Yozh's cabin. The fat man has stopped yelling, but he was still plenty pissed and their conversation was minimal. Which kind of sucked since he was the only person that would speak to her. Leshii's men seemed a very close-nit group and turned positively monosyllabic when speaking to an outsider, which she was and would always be. She had something they didn't, couldn't, weren't allowed to. People she loved, family, friends. Driven by extreme paranoia Leshii strove to make sure his men were motivated by nothing more than the desire for money and adventure, both of which he provided in abundance. Other things came later. Leshii's gang was the only one where members were not only allowed to retire, but were expected to. Most of their considerable pay was deferred until that moment which came every five years: cash in and leave forever, or stay another five. Once retired they would sever all contact with the gang, the stronger the friendships the more immediate the break, and for good reason. "Nobody is here against their will," Leshii told Bones once when he learned of his girlfriend on the outside, "You may leave with her and leave the money you earned or you can blow her brains out and stay." They knew their best friends too well to think their choice would be different than the one that was made that time. This was the world she entered, but she was not of it. For reasons unknown to them the boss allowed her to walk both sides and they hated her for it. And what's wrong with that? Why would she want to be liked by a bunch of ruthless murderers anyway? Stupid High School conformity complex...

Dawn spent most of the quiet time in the cabin composing more letters for Buffy. The responses she got seemed to indicate Buffy knows she's writing in code, though she hasn't yet understood what it is. There wasn't really that much to add to what she has mentioned already, but, perhaps, adding more clues will make it easier for her sister to interpret her previous emails. What made her concerned was that Buffy's letters were edited. The only reason she could think for that was that Leshii was trying to conceal what Buffy knew to make it that much harder for Dawn to feed her information. It's easy to pass along a hidden tidbit here and there, but if she doesn't know what Buffy's missing odds are that most of the time she'll be giving her duplicate information, but if she tries for a bigger chunk, she's likely to get caught. Does Leshii actually suspect her, or is this just another preventive measure? He won't hurt her, but she can't loose whatever little trust she built. Small tidbits it is. Buffy knows the First is involved, that much has gotten through. How much do they know about Its plans, vulnerabilities? Do they know why she's in Chechnya? She only gets to send one email a week, she must make them count.

The guides appeared out of nowhere. Two bearded men on a Nazi style motorcycle with a side car guided the convoy through narrow hidden mountain roads. Often the paths were so steep they had to drive the trucks half loaded up the mountain, drop the cargo then come back for the other half. Unable to help much with the crates, Dawn did most of the driving. The weather was merciless and a few times her truck skidded so badly she thought they would slide off the cliff. It took them four days to get to Shamil's camp. On foot, without the cargo, it would have taken them two.

The sun has set a few hours ago. The camp was lit by a couple of bonfires and flashes of a dozen torches darting around as Chechens unloaded the trucks. Dawn wasn't sure why Yozh just let the Arab looking man with glasses take charge of the cargo before the exchange, but she thought it best not to argue. Instead she picked up a few branches off the ground and began whittling them down into sharp canonical shapes.

"What are you doing?" Yozh inquired suspiciously.

"Here, " she handed him one of the stakes. "Ever fought a vampire?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. After Leshii's sister..," he paused unsure of how much Dawn knew, "...was gone, he organized hunting parties. Sometimes to kill, sometimes to capture for study, " A crooked smile emphasized the exact meaning of the last word. "That's when he caught Zemfira."

"The guy with glasses, " she nodded towards the Arab. "He's one."

"How do you know?"

"The way he looks at me."

"You're kidding, right?" Yozh contemptuously threw the sharp stick back to her. "We're in a camp full of mountain men that haven't been laid in months. Everybody's looking at you."

"Not at my neck they don't," Dawn got up and handed the stake back to him. The fat man gave her a long look and put the weapon inside his overcoat. The trucks were now empty and Chechens moved to unload the trunks of the jeeps.

"Move, the fuck, away from the car!" Yozh shouted stopping them in their tracks.

"Is something wrong?" the vampire approached him.

"You're not touching that until I get my amulet."

"We've got three trucks worth of supplies already distributed across the camp. Isn't it a little late to be distrustful?" the vampire smirked.

"Well, that's a very special crate, " Yozh returned his expression, only the smirk on his face was a lot more satisfied. "It contains master remote controls, like this one, " he pulled a small rectangle with three buttons out of his pocket. "Which trigger the explosives you have so helpfully 'distributed across the camp'. Now where, the fuck, is Shamil with my fucking amulet?"

The man adjusted his glasses first glancing at the remote control then at Dawn who was pointedly checking the sharpness of her stake against her palm. Shamil has given Jibran clear instructions and he did not intend to cheat, but his esteemed guests were getting itchy stubbing fingers, and it would be better not to antagonize them. He relayed this essentially same thought to his subordinate as they went off to fetch their master, only in a more colorful way.

"Well, I'm impressed," Dawn grinned approvingly. "Nicely played and you didn't even bat an eye at all the crap he said."

"When?"

"Just now. Didn't you hear it?"

"I didn't understand it, " he said suddenly suspicious.

Dawn didn't notice. She simply assumed their conversation was taken a usual turn and her grin quickly became an expression of extreme annoyance. "Right. Those wild Chechens, they talk funny, " she mocked him.

"Yes, funny. Especially when they talk in Chechen."

"Who is talking in Chechen?"

"Everyone, but us."

What? She concentrated trying to catch the banter of the fighters. There were certainly a lot of Russian words sprinkled about, but the language was unknown to her. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't understand a single sentence.

"You told me you don't speak Chechen, " gangster pressed.

"I don't. It was joke, " she mumbled. "I don't know what he said. Just seemed like it was about you."

All he could do was shake his head.

"I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what the hell is going on under all that glossy hair, and so far I don't have the slightest fucking idea."

Join the club. Just five minutes ago when Dawn thought they were speaking Russian the conversations were clear as day. Or did she just hallucinate that? She felt wobbly and light headed. The rarefied air of the mountains must be what's screwing with her head.

They didn't have to wait very long for Shamil. A stocky, bearded man he was dressed in winter army fatigues and a fury hat. He smiled as he approached, apologizing from afar.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting. I can trust my men to handle explosives, but not a three month old lamb. We've got about forty minutes before it's done so let's get the business out of the way. If you would follow me..."

"It just you and I," Dawn responded quickly. "The rest stay here. If I'm not back in an hour, " she turned to Yozh, "blow this shit hole sky high."

The small open area where they left the trucks was not the actual camp. The sleeping quarters and supply storage were placed within a vast cave system in the surrounding mountains. Shamil walked briskly down one of the tunnels eager to get the trade over with and start on that lamb. Dawn followed, always keeping at least two steps behind with her right hand nervously gripping the handle of the revolver in her back pocket. She tried to appear stoic and business like, but it wasn't working. Anxiety was getting to her. She felt that if she doesn't start talking soon she'll accidentally pull the trigger and blow her butt off.

"I should get the number of your prosthetic guy for Leshii, " she remarked as casually as she could. "The way your leg moves, it looks totally real."

"It better be, it's my real leg, " Shamil answered glancing behind.

"Never mind. I just heard you had it blown off."

"I did. It grew back."

"Wait a minute, " Dawn stopped, suddenly very concerned. "I thought you were stripped of your powers."

"Vengeance powers. Not the ones I had before."

Shamil was a demon. What kind of demon? Hopefully the kind that can be killed with a gun. It was too late to change anything so Dawn kept following though increasing the distance to three steps now.

"I always thought all D'Hoffryn demons were humans," she continued the small talk.

"D'Hoffryn wasn't always in charge. Vengeance powers would only go to demons for as long as I could remember. It's hard to graft new powers onto existing ones. We were few, but we were good. Then they gave Arashmahaar to D'Hoffryn, for his 'forward thinking'. He started bringing in humans by the boatload. Especially young women, that horny old goat. Human Vengeance Demons are low quality, but cheap to make. The old guard like me got the shaft. There are now seven demons covering tribal vengeance and it's still cheaper than just me."

"Where's the Vengeance Demon of Outsourcing when you need one?" Dawn joked.

"They haven't created that position until the 80's, " Shamil replied

"I was kidding."

"Don't. It's not exactly traditional, but it's the fastest growing field."

"Do your people know you are a demon?"

"These people?" Shamil laughed. "They couldn't care if they had to ally with Shaitan himself and they back it up with deed. You should come by the prisoners cave before you leave. I know you've seen some quality shit running with Leshii, but I bet even you will be impressed."

Dawn didn't appreciate the direction the topic was taking so she moved quickly to change the subject.

"Did you know a Vengeance Demon named Anyanka?" she asked.

"The fury of women scorned, " Shamil nodded. "We've met a few times. She seemed dedicated and intelligent enough. For a former human. How she managed to loose her powers twice in a span of a few years is beyond me."

"She fell in love. Even when Xander left her, she still loved him."

"Love can be funny – can make you fall for a bunny," Shamil quoted smirking into his beard.

"I never heard that one before! Anya and her bunnies..."

"So how has she adjusted to mortal life?"

"Perfectly," Dawn answered. "She's dead."

Shamil stopped and looked at the girl stopping behind him.

"We are here," he said motioning her to move forward. "And there's the chest," he added pointing to a small stone cube sitting in the middle of a small torch lit area.

Dawn glanced at the heavy looking object then at the smug face of her guide.

"Well, bring it here," she said.

"I can't do that," replied Shamil.

Dawn quickly backed away, fumbling for her gun.

"We had a deal!"

Shamil smiled calmly at the scrambling girl.

"You misunderstand me. I'm physically unable to touch it. There's a spell protecting it. It's probably why it's still here."

"Well, how am I supposed to get it?" Dawn snapped angrily trying hard to mask her fear. It seemed the mission was about to crumble at the most critical moment and in the area that was supposed to be her specialty. The notion of this frail human girl snarling at him was almost too comical for the demon, but minding who her boss was, he kept his smile hidden in the recess of his beard.

"As near as I can tell, the spell only protects the box from evil. Or, rather, whatever its creators considered to be 'evil'," Shamil answered politely.

Dawn stared at the demon's impenetrable face trying to gauge if this was some kind of trick. Discerning nothing, she took the only choice available to her and walked in front of him to the box. She crouched near it, looking over each side. It seemed to be buried half way into the sediment and the inscriptions curved into the stone have faded almost entirely. The runes seemed familiar, but she couldn't recall which language they were from.

"What are you waiting for?" Shamil called out from the cave entrance, "Are you afraid you won't be able to touch it either?"

All hesitation gone, Dawn pushed the top off with one agitated push. Inside, on a withered cloth lay a three inch elongated crystal pyramid attached to an intricately woven metal chain. Dawn picked up the amulet and took it to the nearest torch. Aside from runes similar to the ones on the outer box, it had four deep and symmetrical chips running along one of the edges. "This is where it fits into the other half of the original amulet, " Dawn thought. Out of the inner pocket of her coat she took out a small vile she has prepared in Grozny. Two drops and the amulet radiated a gentle blue aura that quickly turned green and dissipated. Strongly enchanted and at least ten thousand years old.

"Satisfied?" asked Shamil correctly reading her expression.

"Hungry, " she answered putting the chain around her neck. "Let's see that lamb."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Whether or not Shamil was as brilliant a murderer as the media made him out to be was hard to say. His cooking skills, on the other hand, Dawn got to experience firsthand and they were exemplary. Two straight weeks of eating nothing, but canned pork, hastily heated in a small pot might, have thrown her taste buds a bit, but she was certain this was the best lamb she ever had. After completing the first course with the rest of the men, the seven of them, Dawn, Yozh, Shamil, Jibran, and three bottles of vodka set up their own camp fire nearby. At thirty below the alcohol flowed as smoothly as water on a hot day, nicely lubing the mellow conversation that somehow has managed to stray away from business, until now.

"So what is all the stuff for? Another cultural trip to the capital?" Yozh asked not expecting an answer. "Just don't blow up the circus, I like the bicycling bears."

"I'm not going to Moscow," Shamil replied. "It was one time deal, not really my thing."

"Strange, " Dawn piped in, "And here I thought you were the one who liked killing people. I know what happened, I must have got you and Mother Teresa mixed up."

Dawn's sarcasm might not have been Yozh's cup of tea, but Shamil seemed to enjoy it.

"Don't know about the good Mother, but while I do enjoy an artful kill, I do not feed on flesh. Fear feeds me, despair, all that general misery. There are eleven million self-absorbed, jaded people in that city. Even a big hostage taking wasn't going to bring them down. The theater trip was a message. This, this is going to be a feast. Maybe my last one here."

"What's with the sour face?" Yozh asked actually going off Shamil's tone since the demon's face was hardly visible behind the glare of the fire.

"The damn oil is going up. Suddenly half the money is more than the whole thing was when the war started. Oil needs safe railroads, intact pipelines. Peace is now worth more than war, a lot more. That 'a lot' has made people reasonable. Moscow is cutting deals left and right and I'm loosing allies by the dozen. They are putting screws to my suppliers, too, so even Grishko will only trade through intermediaries and for triple the price. It's only going to get tougher from here."

"Why don't you move to Congo or something?" Dawn suggested off-handedly as the vampire refilled her glass.

"He can't stand the heat, " Jibran replied for his master.

"If push comes to shove I'll move to Pakistan, but I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond. Even a really small pond will do. After those theater hostages they cut me a deal. I stay away from the big towns and they let me play in the countryside. Only some of their dogs are already cutting into my territory. I need a way to make them stick to their word. I need Leshii."

"No fucking way is the boss coming here," Yozh quickly answered. Apparently the topic came up before.

"The money is good, " Shamil persisted. "I'm getting millions from the Saudis and he can have a big chunk of that. Moscow wants the deal to hold, too, they'll cut him in. With oil and reconstruction there'll be billions flowing through. Even one percent is tens of millions."

"Money may be good, but it's not our scene. There are dozens of clans here. There always will be someone trying to get a bigger piece. We don't like that. If necessary we step in, make an example, so that no one is stupid enough to fuck with us again. These people never learn. Leshii doesn't do constant war. He is not a violent person."

Dawn almost choked on her vodka at the last comment.

"Leshii is special, " Shamil pressed. "He can even make Chechens learn. Remember Doku Sadaev?"

"What about him?" Dawn answered unsure of who the question was directed to.

"You are joking, right?" Shamil scoffed.

Dawn wasn't trying to be a smartass, she was curious. Of the hundreds of Leshii victims mentioned in Dmitri's papers this was one of the few that stuck in her mind. The phrase 'fate worse than death' does that sort of thing. There was no elaboration, though. If there was any fault with Dmitri's style of journalism it was that his revulsion to violence kept him from being sufficiently graphical about Leshii's 'adventures'. Now, it looked like Dawn might finally get a few details.

"I haven't heard of him either," Jibran piped in while Dawn was still constructing a proper information inducing response.

"No surprise there. You spent the 90's living under a rock. Literally, " the demon smirked.

"It was a rejuvenation ritual! For the millennium! I was just hibernating, like bears do."

"Did you plug your ass with a cork like bears do?" Dawn giggled, "Well, they do."

"I'm not sure I want to hear the answer, " Shamil laughed in response.

"Just tell the fucking story, " the vampire snarled.

"Alright, alright. I'll give you the version I heard. Yozh can correct me if he feels like it," he nodded towards the fat man, who shrugged indifferently. "It was around '95. Leshii has been heading his gang for a couple years now. His arbitration business wasn't around that long, but he had developed a pretty nice reputation street level. Chechens were fighting Armenians for the control over two biggest Moscow markets at the time. There weren't really mobs then, just a bunch of ethnic gangs with shifting alliances. An agreement was struck between a dozen or so groups to divide up the merchants. Leshii was signed as the arbitrator. Three weeks later there's a hit on one of the Armenians. Leshii finds out which gang did the deed, executes the leader, and all is quiet. For another three weeks. Same deal, party found, punished. Two months later a restaurant is set on fire, doors barricaded from the outside. Feel free to insert a kabob joke of your choice. Now Leshii is getting pissed. What does he need to do to be taken seriously? This time he wipes out the entire gang. Whatever family members are in Moscow he finds and kills as well. There aren't that many, most of them are in Chechnya which is in the middle of the first war and Leshii's has no connections there. Still, he figures people got the message. Turns out they did get the message, just not the way he expected. The guy running the biggest operation was Doku. Time came he decided to make his move. Only he didn't start with Armenians. He went straight after Leshii, first strike. It was brutal. Leshii never lost so many guys before. Rumor is Doku almost got the man himself when he set off a gas blast in the tunnels. Still Leshii got the upper hand eventually and Doku disappeared. Then a month later his wife turned up. More like a five hundred piece jigsaw puzzle that added up to his wife. Then his two kids. Intact, but without any skin. About the same time a patient was delivered to a Moscow hospital. He had no arms, no legs, no dick, no eyes, no ears, no nose. His teeth were knocked out. His tongue was cut out, as well as his vocal cords. Otherwise, he was in perfect health. He's still there. Somebody's paying a lot of money to keep him alive, keep him under guard, yet accessible through a bulletproof window. Unable to communicate, without fingertips or dental records, there's no way to identify the man. There's no need either. Everyone knows who it is. Leshii caught up to Doku. He tortured his wife and kids in front of him. He made sure the last thing he saw was them writhing in agony, the last thing he heard were their screams, the last thing he tasted was their blood. There would be no other memories for the rest of his very long, very impotent existence. Since that time, no gang, Chechen or otherwise, have tried to fuck with Leshii again. That's the story as I know it. Most of it I can vouch for, as for the rest, like Doku's last hours, well, the guy who was probably there isn't correcting me."

"Were you there?" Dawn turned to Yozh.

"Those legs and arms didn't chainsaw themselves off, " he smirked. "But I wasn't there for the whole thing. When Zemfira started skinning and salting those kids it was a bit much even for me."

"'Zemfira', " the vampire repeated wistfully, "She sounds delicious "

"That's right, Jibran, " Shamil laughed, "The moral of this story is let's hit on the guy's girlfriend."

"They aren't together anymore, " Yozh commented, lighting another cigarette, "Haven't been for a while."

"Never mind, then."

"I think I'm going to call it a night," said Dawn. She got up slowly not sure what was making her more noxious, Shamil's story or the notion of Leshii and Zemfira coupling.

"Peace be with you, girl, " the demon called after her. "Honestly I'm fucking impressed you are still holding it together. You've got at least half a litter in you by my count."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dawn tried to keep to the beaten paths as an errant step would easily leave her waste deep in the fresh snow. Half a litter? Impossible, she barely felt any buzz. She started thinking back to the number of shots she drank counting to the squeaking of the snow accompanying each of her steps. As the number in her head kept rising, her walk became unsteady. It must have been the alcohol that was making her noxious, not the stories. How could she drink so much and not notice? Her legs started to go slack. Her vision began to blur and the blue sea of nighttime snow began to rise and fall around her, surrounding her, until she felt the cold puffs stinging her cheek.

"Get up, sweetheart." Dawn lifted her head off the snow to see her mother's face flush with loving concern. "You can't sleep here, baby, you'll catch your death a cold."

"Go away!" Dawn groaned, slowly rising onto all fours.

"I know you are embarrassed, honey. You don't want your mother to see you like this."

"You are not my mother!" she tried to push the apparition away, but lost her balance and fell back on the ground.

"I'm not happy to see you like this either," Joyce continued, "But we can talk about this later. Right now you're sick and you need me to take care of you. Now get up, baby, the jeep is only fifty feet away, you can do it."

Whether the First or a drunken hallucination Dawn knew it was right. In the darkness no one would see her passed out and she'll freeze to death. She rose slowly grasping at air as though it was filled with imaginary rails, then staggered toward the dark silhouette of the car ahead of her. First she pried open the door, then her fingers from the metallic frame. What the hell happened to her gloves? She climbed inside and shut the door behind her.

"Very good, honey. Now drink some water before you go to sleep."

The windows of the cabin were covered in snow cutting off any light coming from the outside. Dawn couldn't tell where the gentle voice was coming from.

"Where am I supposed to get it?" she shouted back both angrily and resigned.

"It's your jeep, baby. You put the thermos in the glove compartment, remember?"

"So, you're spying on me all the time now?" she mumbled, fumbling for the container inside.

"Mother don't 'spy', Dawn, they 'stay involved in their daughters' lives'. Small gulps, baby, you'll hurt your throat."

Finishing off the contents Dawn simply let go and watched the thermos roll under her seat. She climbed in the back, stretching out until her feet bumped into the walls on the car.

"Good night, Dawn," came a soft whisper as she closed her eyes and let herself fall into the bottomless pit of alcohol induced sleep.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The first ten minutes after she woke up Dawn spent fighting to keep her eyes open. Or, perhaps, to keep her eyes closed. Honestly she wasn't sure which side she was on. She wanted to fall back asleep, but the bumpy mountain road beneath the fast riding jeep and the bright sunlight bursting from the windows would not cooperate. She tried opening her eyes, but the very same light seemed to burn every drop of moisture out of them.

"Where are we?" she addressed whoever it was driving the vehicle.

"Australia," Yozh scoffed from the front seat.

Dawn sat up and looked out the window. It was a beautiful day. As starlit as the sky was last night, the daytime sky beamed with the brightness of the sun. The fresh white powder reflected it back making the whole world outside the car look like a big novelty snow globe. So beautifully fake it made her want to vomit. As did pretty much everything she saw, felt, or smelled at the moment. The water she drank last night kept her head relatively clear, but it didn't help her stomach. She climbed into the passenger's seat and clunked the seat belt closed. They were going awfully fast. Dawn looked over to the speedometer. With clear weather and without the heavy trucks slowing them down Yozh was pushing fifty, probably the most a mountain road would allow.

"How long have you been driving?" she asked of the gangster.

"Since sunrise."

She checked her watch. Eight hours. At this speed they must have covered the entire previous week worth of travel.

"Are we in a hurry somewhere?"

"Germany"

"What's in Germany?"

"Leshii is."

"Oh. How did his expedition go?"

"It's been postponed. Someone attacked Zemfira."

"Someone?"

"Some remote magic thing," Yozh waived his hand uncertainly. "That place in Germany is keeping her safe for now. We don't know who it was, but Leshii is pretty sure it's not the First. If you ask me, I think it's your sister's buddies that are screwing with us."

"No, Buffy wouldn't do that."

"Not when we have such a plump little hostage, she wouldn't, but she isn't the one running the show. Martin says that whole Council is one giant snake pit. Maybe they don't give a shit about you. Maybe even trying to provoke us into offing the big sis."

"Leshii isn't going to fall for it".

"Zemfira's important. One way or the other he will get this thing to go away."

"How important is she?"

"Jealous?"

"That's a 'no' in so many ways!"

The vehemence of her denial in the face of what was so obvious as far as he was concerned only made Yozh laugh harder. Dawn didn't want to argue, she wanted information.

"How long were they together?"

"Pretty much since we captured her, for a couple years."

"She needs protection from Witch Hunters, so I take it he dumped her."

"I never said you were stupid, just crazy"

"Why did he dump her?"

"The usual reason. When you're a fourteen year old kid you just want to stick your dick into something soft and warm, or, in this case, room temperature. Then the novelty wears off. You develop taste and preferences."

"He got tired of her."

"Funny, isn't it? I mean the bitch is a perfect girlfriend."

"What?"

"Think about it," Yozh turned to the shocked teenager tapping his finger against his temple. "That thing she does when she makes things look different..."

"Glamor"

"Yeah, that. She can make herself look like anybody. You can fuck any actress, model, singer, movie character. Different one every day of the week. She isn't just your dream girl, she's every girl of every one of your dreams, " he paused letting the concept sink into his audience. "Only that crap doesn't work on Leshii. No matter what she does he still sees her as a scrawny little brat with no tits. Now that still does it for more guys than care to admit to it, but apparently he's not one of them. I pity the poor little critter sometimes. How many women you know wish their boyfriend was a pedophile?"

"She still loves him."

"Whatever it is they feel, she's got it bad. Those Witch Hunters are all deader than dead, but she's still stuck to him like glue. I'd watch your back, if I were you."

It has become clear to her sometime ago that Yozh thought her Leshii's girlfriend. That would be the most obvious way to explain her sudden appearance and the high position she was given. She wondered if it was something Yozh arrived at on his own or was he told this by Leshii or Zemfira. The truth would make Leshii appear weak, not to mention reveal other truths even more dangerous. Do any of the gangsters know that the girl they rescued in Paris and kept with them all of last summer is the boss's not so dead sister? What is the official reason given to them for fighting the First? Her thought process came to a dead stop as they came down the pass. The small valley where they meet the paratroopers was oozing black smoke which slowly gave way to a view of the smoldering wasteland as they drove closer.

"Stop the car, " Dawn called out needlessly. Yozh was breaking already; this was something he wanted to see up close himself. They exited the car and slowly waddled through the deep snow to the mosaic of burnt out house carcasses and craters.

"What happened here?" Dawn almost whispered.

A wide smile began to spread across Yozh's face.

"Can't say for sure, but the press release probably sounded something like this, 'A crew of courageous paratroopers were ambushed and murdered by terrorists yesterday. In the ensuing cleansing operation, the bandits were exterminated with minimal civilian casualties.'"

The truth of what has occurred has started to sink into Dawn.

"The snow covered the tire tracks and if the locals told on us they weren't believed. We're in the clear, girl, " the gangster continued, starting to cackle as he got a better look at Dawn's face contorted in shock. "Congratulations. Turns out you really did save us twenty grand!" A pat on the back overwhelmed Dawn's already wobbling legs and she fell head first into the snow. She could hear all the gangsters behind her burst out with laughter. She got up slowly not bothering to wipe the snow off. In the melting water coming down her face nobody would see her tears.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The clunk of a stack of dishes being dumped on the table in a deliberately loud way startled everyone into attention.

"What is this?" Buffy paused to let her indignant stare travel around the room. "I leave for two minutes and you all got your noses in books?"

They finally had a breakthrough four days ago. Until then the information they uncovered at the dig sites had at most vague references to various objects or implements of power. It was only when they restored the wall carvings at the accursed Andean caverns that they were able to piece together something concrete. Their first clue was a composite amulet, and if Andrew was interpreting Dawn's allusions correctly, a part of it was somewhere in the Middle East. They had to get there ahead of the First or Leshii and Buffy was on board of every all-nighter research so far. Except tonight. Tonight was off limits.

"It's Willow's birthday, people, so interact!"

"What if Willow wants to read on her birthday?" asked the redhead her eyes once again glued to the page.

"You said you'd rather have a small dinner party than a big hoopla at the compound. There can be no reading at small dinner parties."

"What if we make it a small research party?" Willow countered giddily.

"Do you want me to throw this biscuits at you? Because I will throw this biscuit at you."

"It was always my understanding that traditionally biscuit throwing comes at the end of small dinner parties, " said Giles perusing a text of his own.

"Seriously, people, get rid of the books. I guess this is like a family dinner," she mumbled setting up four places with plates, forks, and knives. "First rule of business, drag everyone away from the television, or in case of this nerd herd, print."

With a loud clap Andrew demonstratively shut his volume and taking a few steps towards the dining table stopped to deliver what seemed like at least a semi-prepared speech.

"I just want to say again, how much it means to me to be invited, Buffy. To be considered part of the family, as you have just implied. The circle is complete. From the founding member of a villainous triumvirate, to the Slayer's closest ally..."

"Andrew," she interrupted, laying out the napkins, "It can't be a dinner party with less than four people and Olivia's flight got rained out, which makes you less my closest ally and more Giles' date."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Speaking of significant others," Willow spoke still chuckling at Giles' mortified expression, "Why isn't yours here?"

"Because, you should be the focus of the evening on your birthday and not my new boyfriend."

"I don't mind."

"I bet. He's perfectly fine with not being invited and even offered to cater the dinner. I kept the food, but let go the waiters. I figure since I'm not going to prepare the meal for the party I'm throwing, the least I can do is serve it."

"After last week's lasagna I think we all can agree it's the most she can do, " Giles mumbled as Buffy exited to the kitchen.

"Hush!" the birthday girl shushed him quietly.

Buffy came back into the room carrying a large silver tray layered with some kind of edible greenery. In the middle were two golden roasted birds with blackened cherries all around.

"Aren't they gorgeous?"

"Is that his way of saying you are too chicken to introduce him to us?" Willow punned happily.

"These aren't chickens, smarty pants. They are game birds, I think. Maybe. I'm not sure what they are."

She set the tray in the middle, and taking out a six-inch sica that served as a kitchen knife for the last two months, proceeded to cut each one of them in half. The extraordinary aroma had both Andrew and Willow finally seated at the table. The last holdout was Giles who was still very much engrossed in his read.

"Turkey!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Of course! It's so frightfully obvious!"

Buffy and Willow looked at each other then the birds.

"It is?"

"Do you mean like a baby turkey?" Willow whimpered guiltily.

"No, " the Englishman looked up confused, "like the country, Turkey."

Buffy's expression that mirrored that of her ex-Watcher has now notched a few degrees higher.

"So you are saying the big ones we usually eat are urban turkeys?"

There was a moment of silence as the look of confusion on Giles' face gave way to complete and utter bewilderment.

"The amulet, Buffy, it's in Istanbul."

Who knows how long she and Giles could have stared at each other, but it was Andrew who broke down in laughter first.

"Oh, eat your turkey!" Buffy threw half a bird on his plate as her legs buckled from under her and she fell on her chair laughing. They all were. The sound rose and filled the living room, branching into every corner of the apartment. For the first time in months this was a happy home.


	7. Chapter 7: Score One for the Good Guys

**Chapter 7: Score One for the Good Guys**

The law of probability states that over time things have to even out. Not the formal definition, sure, but that was the gist of it as far as Buffy remembered. She has certainly waited long enough, and now things are finally swinging her way. Dawn is out of Chechnya and safe in German countryside for the foreseeable future. The Brits have finally made with shiny uranium weaponry and with Leshii apparently having his ass handed to him in Istanbul it looks increasingly likely they'll get a chance to use it. Now having to poke an invincible beasty until It gets annoyed and leaves was not her idea of a thrilling battle, but some decent First Ass kicking would be good for the morale of the troops. Then there's Mortimer...

"Wow, " Willow gasped. "No big speachy preamble? Just 'I love you', out of nowhere?"

"Pretty much"

"And what did you say?"

"Thbpbpthpt..."

"You didn't!"

"Not in so many words".

"That's so wrong!"

"Why? What was I supposed to say?"

"I don't know. Something romantic"

"You have to stop with the vicarious smoochies already and get your own." Buffy jammed her knee into the bulging suitcase and carefully pulled on the zipper mindful of how many times she ripped these off before. "And don't tell me you're busy."

"Well, it's hard, " the witch griped quietly. "I've never done the whole lesbian dating scene before. Tara and I, well, that was fate, and Kennedy asked me out."

"She didn't ask you, she just moved into your bed," Buffy corrected her with both eyes on her zipping task. Half way there.

Willow opened her mouth to counter, then shrugged. "No, that's pretty accurate. So you understand what I mean. I have plenty of breaking a relationship experience, but not so much starting one. This is a foreign country, too, and my Italian bites."

"I'm going to kick myself for suggesting this, but have you tried the Internet? She doesn't have to be local. You're a teleporter, long distance relationships shouldn't be an issue."

"I don't know, " the witch's response lacked even a sliver of enthusiasm. She watched as Buffy took out a long sword from the closet and was trying to tie the sheave to the handles of her bags.

"Why are you taking that?"

"Yeah, I know, I've been mostly stake and dagger girl over the years, but I've been experimenting with spears, halberds, and flambards over the last few months and it's a totally different fighting experience. I like the long reach. Can't easily use your feet and fists so you rely more on the actual weapon. Feels more adult, more satisfying somehow."

"I've noticed the switch. I just figured your obsession with all things long would go away once you get back into a relationship."

"Don't you have some drugs to mix?" Buffy shot back, trying to hide her smile.

"All packed and ready, " the redhead responded patting the suitcases her feet rested on. "Speaking of volatile mixtures, I hear you're taking both Stefka and Alice with us."

"I'm going to be putting those two together until they either work it out or kill each other. Either way I'm getting this thing resolved."

"So who's going to be left in charge here?"

"I'll let Scheherazade entertain her subjects."

Willow furrowed her brow in a fruitless attempt to decipher that sentence. "It's not a real name, is it?"

"It's Samira. You'd know that if you got out of the house more than once a month. Andrew gave her this nickname when he tried to go out with her. One word description covering her beauty, her intelligence, and her heritage, as he put it. The girls went with it."

"Really? Since when are teenagers this complimentary?"

"They had another reason, " Buffy replied planting her suitcase next to Willow's. "Samira likes to tell stories."

"What kind of stories?"

"All kinds. Mostly sordid ones with no basis in reality."

"Wait a minute, " Willow smiled as she realized where Buffy's suddenly annoyed tone was coming from. "Is she the one spreading all those rumors about you and Spike?"

"You heard them? In Rio? I've got to put a stop to this."

"Since when are you so concerned what a bunch of school girls think about you?" the redhead pressed sensing another golden teasing opportunity.

"I'm not concerned."

"Sure, you are not."

"I'm not!" Buffy stumbled trying to feel her way to a believable excuse. "It's Spike. Spike! He's dead, and he's not here to defend himself, so it's wrong to tell stories; very disrespectful to his memory. That's right."

"Yes, of course, " Willow's face was the very epitome of sarcasm. "Spike's good name, that's what needs protection, his character, his spotless reputation."

"He sacrificed his life to save the world! If he is to be talked about it should be about the good he did."

"He is, " the witch turned positively giddy. "You're good and he did you!"

"Willow!" Buffy's protest was halfhearted at best. It was a quality pun and she walked right into it.

"So it came out a little crude, it's still true. Even with the saving of the world, and the many good things he's done in his last years, and even more bad things he did before then, what he will be remembered for the most is being one of your lovers," Willow got out of the comfy chair and reached into her pouch for the teleportation powder, "That's me complimenting you, by the way."

"I'm not sure if I want this compliment," Buffy replied with a feigned grumpiness.

"Yes, you do. It was very nicely layered," the witch retorted in turn layering both of them with the golden specs.

They materialized in the designated spot in the front of the cabin to a rather loud, high pitched greeting.

"Wait a minute," Lili shouted, "They said you couldn't teleport!"

"I know where the plane is," Willow explained, "but I've never been to Istanbul."

"Can't you fly ahead, then teleport back here and teleport us? What?"

"Don't pay any attention to her," Alice responded from one row back, "she's a poor flier and the pill police confiscated her medicine."

"Stefka?" Buffy glanced around the plane, rising slightly out of her seat. "What kind of medicine?

"Legal medicine!" Lili continued her agitated protest, "legally prescribed by a doctor!"

"To your mother, " added Stefka exiting the kitchen air with a large cup she placed in front of the fidgeting French girl. "Here."

"What is this?" she asked suspiciously sizing up the mug.

"Chamomile and ginger tea. It's very calming."

"Is it better than Valium?"

Buffy leaned over her chair once more and smiled as sweetly as only she could.

"If it doesn't work, I'll be more than happy to knock you out."

Perhaps reassured by the availability of a backup plan Lili fell quiet and took a few meek sips from her cup.

"You are late"

Buffy turned to find Andrew standing over them looking unusually stern.

"Only fifteen minutes," she answered amused by his unusual demeanor, "It's called fashionably late."

"Not on my plane it's not," the boy replied authoritatively and raised his hands in a vain hope of bringing down the volume of chatter.

"Ladies, may I please have a moment of your attention. As we take off a few words about the safety procedures on this flight. Notice the exit doors around you. In case of an emergency please try to use these first before making your own. This is a charter plane and we have a high deductible. In case of a water landing, there's an inflatable flotation device under each seat. Please pull on the inflation string after you exit the plane, not before, and, please, do not take your weapons with you as they tend to counteract the effect of the flotation device. By popular request we will not be watching any of the DVDs I have brought along. Totally uncalled for, by the way, Johnny English is very underrated. Our time in the air is expected to be approximately ninety minutes. I will come by shortly with peanuts and drinks. A good flight to us all. Thank you."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It wasn't overly intentional, but the slayers looked very much like any other flock of tourists pounding the floors of Haghia Sophia. Andrew, walking backwards with his face to the group was playing the tour guide expounding on the virtues of Roman architecture and post iconoclastic art. The slayers for their part had all the makings of students on a High School sponsored field trip. "In a way they are", Buffy thought admiring the scene. Any other time it would be her in front of the class, taking the opportunity to show off her intellectual side. Today, however, she felt no need. Giles' research placed the amulet in the old city of Constantinople, but it was her brilliant idea to have Willow soup up their Geiger counters so they could track residual radiation left by Leshii's weaponry. Less than an hour out of the airport and they were already at the epicenter. The amulet should be theirs by tonight, at the latest, all thanks to her genius insight. Already pleased with her IQish self, Buffy was now basking in her generosity of giving Andrew his moment in the sun. The feeling didn't last as the guilt at all the self-congratulation has quickly overtaken her. She glanced over at Willow to see if she was catching her thoughts, but the witch was occupied by another subject entirely. Buffy followed her gaze and nodded approvingly.

"So how do you want to do this? A little historical anecdote? She looks like the type that would enjoy it."

"What? No!"

"Alright, ye timid one. I suppose I can start a conversation and work you in."

"Stop it, already!" Willow grabbed Buffy's sleeve as the Slayer made a move in the direction of the conversation subject. "Would you stop trying to hook me up? We're on a mission against the First Evil, for God's sake!"

"So? Doesn't mean I can't have a little side mission of my own."

"Just drop it"

"You were the one staring"

"I wasn't staring! I was...looking at the frescoes"

"Frescoes? Right," Buffy rolled her eyes then suddenly grinned. "Actually, I can see that. Virgin Marry, she's quite a hottie, and a nice Jewish girl to boot."

She didn't need that loud telepathic 'shut up!', the expression on the Willow's face was clear enough. "Gather around, everyone!" Willow called to the group realizing that the only way to end that conversation was to start another. "We're pretty sure what we are looking for is in the catacombs. We'll be splitting up into teams of three to cover as much ground as possible. I will turn you all invisible and we'll enter thorough the basement. Since I can't do it in front all the people and the cameras, I'll be casting it in the restrooms. Once we are inside the tunnels take note of every room you cover and anything interesting you see. If you see any of the First's minions do not engage. I can't make this anymore clear. Do not, under any circumstances, let yourself be found out. If you need an emergency evac crush the little clay ball I'll hand out shortly to everyone. The sparkly sand inside is what will let me teleport you out without having to be there in person, if you are in range, if not it'll let me home in on your location. Once we're done, we'll come back to the bathrooms where I'll reverse the spell and you'll exit one by one in your visible self. This way, to any security guard it would simply appear that..."

"We all have a serious fiber deficiency, " Buffy finished for her.

"Why not," mumbled Dasha. "They already think I'm some kind of hunchback." Willow's spell might have made the weapons bag invisible and unseen to metal detectors, but it didn't make it weightless. Dasha's posture looked downright ridiculous under the seventy kilo sack.

"We'll need one person to stay behind to secure the exit, " Buffy continued. "I was thinking…"

"I'll do it, " Stefka called out from the back.

"Really?" Buffy was caught completely off guard by her most conscientious fighter volunteering for the safe assignment.

"Is it a problem?"

Is it? Buffy took a second to measure the expression on Stefka's face. Over the last few months she grew quite adept at reading the subtle signs among the girl's deliberately emotionless features. She wanted this, badly. The question 'why' never left Buffy's lips as they spread out in a smile. Of course; barring maybe Jerusalem, they were standing in the middle of the holiest site in all of Orthodox Christendom.

"No problem. Oksana and Dasha, looks like you've lost your third. Alright, ladies, let's go powder our noses."

Buffy disappeared after Willow into the nearest restroom; Alice, Nasira, and Enise followed. The rest of the slayers loitered in the vicinity waiting their turn. While there is nothing more mundane than a few girls making use of the facilities a team event, a dozen might have drawn unnecessary scrutiny.

"This is so typical," Oksana fumed in her native tongue. "They think if they are the ones writing the rules then they don't apply to them!"

"What are you talking about?" Dasha replied assuming the gripe was directed her way as she was the only one capable of understanding it.

"Willow. She was the one who came up with that stupid rule where we have to speak the local language, and now that she's not 'officially' with the Council she gets to speak whatever she wants!"

Dasha sighed adjusting her hair spikes in front of her marble reflection. How does she keep finding all these reasons to complain? They are never the same, too. Unfortunately engagement was the only thing to do.

"What do you want to speak?"

"Well, since Russian is out of the question, English. I didn't spend eight miserable years getting my mouth twisted around those stupid 'th' sounds, just to be told to switch to Italian!" the girl seemed seriously ticked off.

"But Willow speaks English,"

"Exactly"

"And she lets you speak English to her," Dasha continued, examining her nose ring in the reflection. Maybe she should get a bigger one. No, a second one!

"So?"

"So what is it are you complaining about?"

For a few seconds Oksana just stood there, blinking. One of them is being dense, but which one?

"She gets to do it all the time!"

"So instead of getting what you want some of the time, you'd rather be miserable all the time just to make someone else as miserable as you?"

"No! I…wait…no, that's not…hold on…that can't be…no, wait..."

Watching the Russian trip up on her own train of thought was all the more entertaining now that Buffy has taken the weapons bag of her literal back.

"Can I get another partner?" Dasha called out giggling to the rest of the group. "I think I broke mine"

"Actually, I might join you," Andrew replied from behind. "I think Buffy meant for me to stay behind, but now that's Stefka usurped the spot, it's down the rabbit hole for me."

"Why are you in line?" Dasha happily picked up the conversation. "We're doing this to avoid drawing suspicion. I don't think a man going into a woman's lavatory serves that purpose"

"Are you kidding? I'm five minutes away from being invisible in a girl's bathroom. That's every guys dream from third grade to high school. I'm not missing this!"

"I'm afraid you are," Stefka gripped his shoulder just firmly enough to make her intentions clear, "with all due respect."

"I was joking!" Andrew protested as she led him away, "It's not like there's anyone there, but us."

"And if some of the girls wanted to use the facilities as intended? At any rate, such behavior does not become a gentleman."

"Don't you patronize me, I'm a Watcher!"

"Not that kind of a watcher, I hope"

"Very funny! Due respect my butt! You have no respect for me!"

"I have the respect that's due. Now why don't you wait for Willow in the men's room."

"Disrespect and hypocrisy! Why is Willow getting special treatment?"

"Because that's not how she'll see it."

"Sure, " Andrew grumbled, "Play the gay card why don't you. You know," he started in a more hopeful tone, "Some people think I'm gay"

"You have two girlfriends"

"Textbook overcompensating, don't you think?" It was a good try, but all he could get was a smile.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

One by one they all disappeared through the custodial doors into the basement. Andrew was last. Stefka couldn't see any of them, of course, but something clearly snagged on the door handle and the Watcher's coat was the most likely culprit. She turned and walked towards the scaffolding standing in the middle of the church. High up above they were restoring seraphim frescos. Slowly she made her way around the structure keeping her eyes fastened to the massive dome. Stefka was unsure of where she was supposed to go and what she was supposed to do so starting at the center made the most sense. Certainly no stranger to a church this cathedral filled her with the oddest sensation as soon as she stepped through its doors. It has been a very long time since she felt this way perhaps by coincidence also in a place called Sophia.

"Stefka. Stefka!" Hawthorne called a little louder. The child turned around. "You have to learn to answer to that name, sweetheart." The little girl looked a bit scared and very apologetic. "It's alright," the watcher smiled broadly trying to perk up his tiny companion. "Have you ever been to a church, Stefka?"

The girl shook her head.

"This is a place of God," the Watcher said as they walked through the large wooden entrance. They needed to spend at least three more days in the Bulgarian capital to fully establish the girl's fake identity. It didn't mean the Potential's education had to wait that long to begin. "Do you know who God is?"

"He lives in the sky," said Stefka in a barely audible voice. She was looking around the unfamiliar scene, fascinated by the pictures and carvings along the wall. "Yozh says he's make belief, like Grandfather Frost"

"Ah, the joys of atheistic upbringing," said Hawthorne without smiling. "Some gods are like that, make-belief. Others are quite real. They live in worlds different from ours, and, thankfully, tend to stay there. But there's one true God, Stefka, above and beyond all others. He's the Creator of everything you see, and all the things you don't."

"Is this where he lives?" asked the girl still constantly twisting her neck, trying to capture every angle of her strange surroundings.

"No, he lives here," Hawthorne gently poked her tiny chest. "He lives in all of us. This place is like a mirror. We use a mirror to look at our faces. We go to church to see God inside us." He smiled watching the girl's confused expression. "Don't worry if you don't understand yet. None of us really do, that's why we keep coming back here. Now take a seat and listen quietly."

Already free from mandated Communist atheism, but not yet taken over by Western European secularism, Bulgaria supplied plentiful congregation to its churches. Stefka stood by her Watcher as people all around chanted her first Divine Liturgy. She was missing half the words, but the sound of hundreds of people singing in harmony with joy and love has filled her with a strange exhilarating notion, that this world just may be more good than evil.

That harmony was only in Stefka's head now. The sounds that filled the halls of Haghia Sophia were disjointed bits of lectures and conversations, bouncing awkwardly off the walls. It has been centuries since the last Liturgy. It's been decades since the last Islamic chant. Electric lights now shine at frescos in place of prayer candles. Crowds of gawking adults and bored children wonder aimlessly where legions of the faithful would have stood. This was a museum, now; more hollow than hallow. The transformation left Stefka unfazed. Secularized on government orders it would not be sterilized. This was a holly place, nothing could change it. She left the crowded West Gallery and moved into the North. There were very few people there, mostly passing through to other sections. Frescos attracted the most visitors and here the walls were covered with plaster inscribed with beautiful floral patterns and Coranic calligraphy. More than five hundred years ago the Sultan converted Haghia Sophia into a mosque. Deemed idolatrous by Coranic standards the frescos were slated to be destroyed, but at the last moment ordered to be covered up instead. These people, giving barely a minute glance to this wall, did not see what was so obvious to Stefka. There was no reason for the sultan to take such care to preserve something neither he nor his heirs could possibly see again. Only Providence could have stayed his hand. The section of plaster, still untouched by restoration crews was nothing less than a physical manifestation of that long ago miracle. She walked slowly along the wall her palm extended towards it, but not quite touching. All of a sudden she stopped and took a step back. A few chips of the plaster lay on the floor. She traced the wall with her eyes. About a foot above her a couple square inches of the original wall peaked through the cover. Likely cleared by that morning's small earthquake an eye of an old fresco was looking back at Stefka. Taking a notice of the position of the security cameras fixed to the columns she opened up her coat half way to shield herself from prying gazes. Along with the dagger she took out of Dasha's weapons bag, the inside pocket contained three smokeless candles. Akin to roadside flares a simple flick of her fingers would light one up. The warmth of the tiny flame seemed to radiate through her hands covering it and throughout her entire body as she mouthed a prayer to the Savior peaking at her through plaster.

"He looks hurt," the little girl whispered as they passed under the giant wooden crucifix.

"He is, " Hawthorne answered. The service was over and they made their way to the front of the church for a closer look.

"If He can do anything why does He let the bad people hurt him?"

"They weren't bad people. We all do bad things, Stefka, some worse than others, some more than others. We don't always get punished. The world can take only so much of this. There always have to be consequences. He could do anything, but he chose to take our punishment so we don't have to."

"Why?"

"Because He loves us, all of us. That's why He is God. One day you'll met people who can read minds, throw lightening, or even raise the dead. A person can learn to wield great power, but he can't love like God loves. That's where true power lies because without love nothing we do means anything."

The lofty concepts were a bit too much for the eight year old, but she didn't struggle with their meaning. So much has happened in the last few days that all she could do was simply accept the words and images thrown at her as they came, absorbing what she could and filing the rest into the recess of her subconscious.

"I don't want anybody to get hurt," she replied quietly, still gazing up at the crucifix.

"I don't doubt that for a second," the Watcher smiled looking deep into the wide open eyes of his charge, "That's why He made you very special. You are going to make this world a better place."

Stefka opened her eyes. The candle burned almost half way. Its flame, much closer to her skin now was beginning to burn. She looked at it in some indecision when it struck her, the flame was off. It wasn't by much, maybe ten degrees, but there was clearly a current of air coming from below. She glanced at the cameras once again, then turned out the left pocket of her pants purposely spilling coins all over. Crouching down she moved the candle around to the find the source, occasionally picking up a coin with her left for appearances. One of the marble plates covering the area she stood on did not fit as tightly as the others; there was definitely air coming up through the cracks. Cameras. They could put only so many in without spoiling the décor. Stefka's location was covered by two of them, but they were moving cameras which by her calculations gave two twenty second windows when she would be seen by one of them, but not the other. Still pretending to gather change off the ground she waited for her first opening. Making sure to position herself properly she whipped out her dagger and jammed it into one of the cracks. Caught between the weight of the marble and the strength of the slayer the steel blade was starting to bend, but Stefka was able to force a larger gap. Twenty seconds were up. She jumped to the other side placing herself in between the other camera and her act of forced vandalism and dropped her candle inside. Four second drop. She jammed the plate back into place and rose to her feet just as the second window expired. For a few seconds she stood completely still, holding her breath. The murmur inside the cathedral was still the same, no one was coming to get her. The eye of the faded fresco was looking down on her as gently as ever. Stefka opened up her coat once more and lit a second candle, her hand trembling slightly.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Closing time. Streams of tourists shuffled towards the exit, but Stefka lingered until one of the security guards politely tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the door. As she stepped outside, the sun, which sat low on the horizon, hit her straight in the eyes, blinding her for a few seconds. She squinted, trying to adjust, when the light was suddenly blocked. The shape in front of her seemed otherworldly black, featureless, the glare of the sun framing its human form by a most magnificent golden aura.

"Stefka, " Buffy repeated as the girl kept blinking at her. "Are you alright?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"We are in the garden. Care to join us?" Seeing Stefka still somewhat disoriented she took her hand and led her to a path branching right from the entrance.

"Did you find anything?" the girl asked almost on auto pilot.

"Nothing, but plenty of it. The catacombs are huge. Those early Christians sure had a lot of time on their hands."

"Idle hands are the Devil's playground, " Stefka quipped with an absent minded smile.

"Seriously. We did find out a couple of things. One good and one, well, inconvenient. It seems what has been screwing with Willow's magic has nothing to do with the First. The cathedral stands on a refraction point or something like that. Basically it scatters magic. Which means we are probably in the right place since the other dig sites were at the focal points; it fits, in the opposite sense. I don't know if it's significant. Definitely a different strategy for whatever they put here. Or it could be different people, maybe enemies? I haven't decided if it's significant."

"No magic, " Stefka repeated her thought out loud unintentionally interrupting Buffy's excited rambling.

"That's the inconvenient part. It doesn't prevent magic, it scatters. The effects are inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the source and the subject; that's the formal measurement according to our boy Watcher. The end result is that Willow's spells start being a little useless ten meters away."

"So the teleportation enhancers…"

"Are worth their weight in crap, " Buffy added her own finish. "Which is why I'm taking finding nothing this afternoon as good news. We'll need to huddle tonight and decide on a new strategy. Doubling team size to six would double the safety, but also double the search time. We may want to bring in reinforcements. Anyways, we'll discuss it at the hotel."

They found the slayers crowding a bench on which Willow and Andrew were taking survey of the girls and marking up their maps accordingly.

"Well, look who has shown up, " Alice greeted Stefka in the usual tone. "Did the tour guide reveal any First Evil secrets, by chance?"

"I know where It is," the girl answered plainly. The conversations stopped.

"There's a narrow well beneath the floor in the North Gallery. It goes about eighty meters straight down. The First is down there."

"You climbed down? In the middle of the museum?" Alice's voice was bursting with skepticism.

"No"

"There are dozens of these shafts littering the church; they ventilate the catacombs we are searching," the British girl scoffed.

"Eighty meters sounds a lot lower than where we've been, " Andrew mumbled pensively.

"The First is there, I'm certain," Stefka reiterated.

"How can you possibly be certain? Did God tell you?" her rival snickered mockingly.

"Yes."

Alice's mouth remained open as her brain was struggling to accept that she actually heard what she has heard. She turned to Buffy inviting her to bear witness to the insanity that is her favorite pupil, but her jaw was apparently destined to drop even further.

"Works for me, " Buffy shrugged. "Let's check it out."

"We could come back after security rounds are done in a few hours, " Andrew nodded. "What do we do about the eighty meter drop?"

"I can float everyone up and down, as long as you don't get more than seven meters ahead of me," Willow answered, "Just how narrow is this well?"

"No, " Stefka shook her head. "It's too risky. What if something happens to you?"

"What is supposed to happen to me?"

"No, she's right, " Dasha piped in from the back. "What if you knock your head on something and get some kind of magic amnesia? We'll be stuck eighty meters down with no food. Next thing you know we have to eat someone to stay alive, and I just know it's going to be me! It's always the fat girl, always."

"I get it, I get it, " Buffy interrupted the rant. "Climbing gear. Andrew, go procure. Everybody relax, nobody here is getting eaten; not anytime soon, anyway."

"Why did you look at me when you said that?" said Willow, aghast.

"I was looking at the frescoes. Now, the whole climbing gear thing requires more discretion, so right now everybody is going back to the hotel for some nappy time and we reconvene here at 2am for some breaking and entering. Let's go."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The group was significantly smaller now. Dasha volunteered herself and Oksana to help Andrew while a few other girls felt they had done enough walking for the day and pooled their petty cash for cab fare. Those who preferred a stroll through the old town instead followed Enise down the cobblestone streets. Buffy walked besides the Turkish girl the first few minutes, but quickly drifted towards the end of the group where Alice was sulking all by her lonesome.

"You do realize that you have planned an entire operation around a tip from Jesus?" the girl spoke up unexpectedly as Buffy was still pondering the best way to start the lecture she spent the last half hour composing for her.

"There's more to being a Slayer than punching hard, Alice. You have to know who to punch and where."

"It's been a while since I read the Bible, but I don't think Jesus was into punching."

"This has nothing to do with Jesus!" Buffy rolled her eyes impatiently. "It's about intuition, it's about faith. Not necessarily the Jesus kind, but the Slayer kind. A Slayer's most powerful weapon is her intuition, but you will not feel it until you believe in it, believe in yourself as a Slayer, as a Chosen One. I don't know who chooses. Stefka thinks it's Jesus. Maybe she's right, what do I know? What do I care? What I care is that she is a Slayer and she has a strong feeling we have to proceed a certain way, and it is my intuition that I have to follow hers."

"My intuition is telling me you are both nuts."

"No, your intuition is telling you nothing. Or rather, you are not listening. You are a lemon squeezer, Alice"

"A what?" the girl just stared at Buffy unsure if this was an insult or something way more inappropriate.

"The hard work you are doing, all that initiative, it's all forced," the Slayer expounded, "That's the vibe I get from you. You are making lemonade out of your lemons; making the best out of a bad situation. This is an excellent quality in a person and it would be perfect if I was running an amputee ward, but I'm not. I want the girls to feel like that they are Chosen Ones, not Picked on Ones. If I feel it, so do they; they pick up on it, if only subconsciously. You get lots of credit in my book for working so hard at something you don't want to do, but no one's forcing you to be a leader. That's your choice and my right to hold you to a much higher standard. The others don't have your work ethic; they need a different form of motivation, the kind they get from Stefka. They make fun of her, say she's lame, but her faith is rubbing off."

"Well, I'm sorry if we all can't be hapless orphans brainwashed since grade school! I had a life, family, and friends. I had plans for my life, different plans! I guess I'm just not special like you two"

"That's not at all where I'm going. When I was your age I wasn't even a lemonade maker, I was a lemon thrower. Poor Giles had migraines every other week. I hated being a Slayer. It made everything harder, friends, family, school. No stable job, no stable relationship, no stable anything. The promise of a short lifespan was no picnic either. What I didn't get is what made it so hard is that I didn't believe. The victim mentality is what held me back. It's what is holding you back. It's dangerous and it can get you killed. Too many Slayers have died because they developed a death wish." Buffy paused. This wasn't supposed to be a 'scared straight speech'. She needs something inspirational and quick. "A Slayer's existence doesn't have to be about sacrifice and misery. More than a few lived genuinely happy lives because there comes a morning when you look around and realize that the reason the sun is still shining is because of you and then everything makes sense. I just want you to be open to that. Open to the possibility that this is a gift, something I wish I realized when I was your age."

Alice didn't answer, but by the look of it the entire effort didn't spend much time traveling in between the teenager's ears.

What the hell was that? Now it's "when I was your age" speech? That's not how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be the fun Slayer, the "I wish she was my older sister" Slayer. Now she's the lame, lecturing adult. It's all Giles' fault. It's a Watcher's job to dispense out boring, unheeded advice. Where are her Watchers? Would it really be that tragic to cut graduation requirements by a third and get a few dozen out of the Academy early? 'It wouldn't be ethical'. How ethical is it to leave her out to dry like this? Buffy sighed again looking at Alice's grim face walking besides her. Thank God she has Stefka to absorb so much of that teenage surliness.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy stopped climbing upwards about ten meters before the well mouth and slowly turned upside down. The shaft was extremely narrow and even at five two it was a tight fit. She planted her bare feet against the opposing walls and pulled hard on the cord attached to her harness. The pulleys held.

"Looks solid, " she called out to Daria who was on her stomach, looking down at her with an almost comatose expression. "I'm coming down. Are you going to be alright up there?"

"Death by boredom is a real possibility," she answered sleepily.

"You could use the time to practice your card drawing skills," Buffy teased the unlucky Egyptian. Daria got out of carrying the weapons bag on a tie breaker, but when it came to guard duty draw she was all alone with her deuce. Once the lock was released it was only thirty seconds to the bottom. Buffy threw off the harness and tagged on the cord. Immediately the entire system was whisked back to the top. There wasn't a lot of room to maneuver. The opening below the shaft was barely big enough for two people, the rest of the team has apparently moved into the tunnels. The second person was Willow, guarding her life during the gear test and, most importantly, her Dolce & Gabbana's.

"How's it looking?" the Slayer inquired pulling on her boots.

"This part of the catacombs is fairly new. They dug up this shaft to connect to the ventilation system for the Roman tunnels above," Willow answered, scooting over so as not to get hit in the eye by the really sharp heel. "It stays pretty cramped for about two hundred feet, but then you enter a different tunnel system. According to Andrew, it looks, quote 'ancient and weird'. There's a bunch of Egyptian pictograms, but the frescos on the walls are definitely Greek. They are all waiting on you before going any further."

"Good. Let's go then". Footwear in place, Buffy grabbed her weapons and headed for the flashlights flickering ahead. The old tunnels were a bit roomier than the ventilation system, but not by much. Looking at Stefka bent in half trying hard not to trip over her own gear made Buffy very thankful for being six inches shorter as well as her status which allowed her to skip the ranged weaponry. Every other slayer packed a crossbow with two quivers of bolts, one regular, one low yield uranium tipped. Each also had a depleted uranium version of her close range weapon strapped to her side. Something Buffy also skimmed on by packing a radioactive cutlass instead a long sword. This one, though, was a practical decision rather than abuse of privilege, not even a Slayer can make two four foot blades work.

"You are wearing heels," Stefka commented out of nowhere.

"We're in a church," Buffy replied with a deliberately authoritative tone, "I dress appropriately. What are you wearing, sneakers? Kidding," she quickly added getting only an awkward silence as a reply.

"Are these special shoes?"

"They better be, for two hundred euros," Buffy took another shot at a humorous answer, but it fell just as flat. Clearly the tension that rendered mute the other slayers was also getting to Stefka. "Actually, the shoes do have a special purpose, a psychological one. True, heels do have their advantages sometimes, but that's not really the point. See, I've been slaying alone for seven years..."

"Excuse me?" Willow interrupted, indignant.

"Slayer wise, of course. I had lots of help, crucial, irreplaceable help, but no replacement. No shifts, no days off. Even when I wasn't trolling through graveyards I was bound to run into a vampire sometime during the evening. Does that mean I never wear anything nice? We're still girls. Just because we are killing something doesn't mean we can't look pretty doing it." She shook her head at Stefka's blank expression. "Wrong audience. Samira would have appreciated my point."

"She's stylish, " Willow nodded in agreement. "A bit too much gold for my taste, though."

"She has a darker complexion than you, she totally pulls it off, " Andrew jumped into the conversation. "She's got this gorgeous Persian princess look going, and it's totally…"

"Oh, my God, you have a girlfriend, girlfriends!"

"It's an on and off thing," Andrew stumbled apologetically at Willow's very vocal disapproval.

"It's not going to happen, Andrew," Buffy said in a voice full of knowledgeable benevolence. "Samira is in her 'bad boy' phase. "

"I used to be a bad boy!"

"A really bad one," Willow snickered, "But not in a good way. I mean not in a bad way. I mean, oh never mind, I messed it up. It started out pretty funny in my head."

"Let that be a lesson to you," Andrew answered snidely.

"Won't work, she's the try until you succeed kind. So to save my girl further embarrassment I'm going to have you join Kate and Sheelah back there."

"Bull!" Andrew snapped in insult at Buffy's proposal. "You just think we're getting close to something and you don't want me on the front line. For your information I've taken no less than six combat classes at the Academy!"

"Were team exercises part of your training?" the Slayer calmly inquired.

"Of course!"

"Then what's the first rule of team combat?"

Mate in just two moves.

"Follow the orders of your tactical officer," Andrew signed, defeated. "I want my objection noted for the record."

"Duly noted."

"Are we getting closer?" Stefka inquired as she watched Andrew squeeze through the slayer ranks.

"I wouldn't know, " Buffy replied and nodded towards Willow, "but she does."

"We're getting close to the epicenter. Things are a lot less fuzzy now, but not enough to do a full scanning spell."

"Can you use your radar?"

"What radar?"

"At the airport, " Stefka started, a little surprised at the bewildered looks she got from both Buffy and Willow, "I overheard you talking to Buffy about perfecting some kind of radar."

As though hit a shovel Buffy immediately doubled over holding her mouth with both hands trying to somehow contain the laughter that was bursting her insides. Willow, on the other hand, has remained amazingly stoic.

"Yes, the gaydar," the witch responded in a calm, measured tone. "It is unaffected by magic refraction, but, unfortunately, has very limited applications, not particularly suitable for the current situation."

Stefka had a bad feeling that she has said something stupid, but was totally thrown off by Willow's business-like response. Hidden in the shadows of the flashlights she could not tell that this calm demeanor was bought at a price of the lower lip being chewed almost to the point of bleeding.

"What is it used for?" the girl continued on with her ill-fated inquiry as Buffy has finally stopped making strange noises and stood up straight, taking deep breathes to calm herself down.

"I guess it qualifies as a form of telepathy. See…" Willow stopped mid sentence as the Slayer's hand leaped into the air and after a momentary pause clicked off her flashlight. Within a second the lights went out across the entire team. Willow took position a step ahead of Buffy, her clothes acquiring a slight glow, just enough for the slayers to distinguish her shape in the complete darkness of the catacombs. They followed the witch in silence, counting on their half outstretched arms to keep them from bumping into the walls and each other. What attracted Buffy attention initially was a dramatically widened entrance that came into view as they rounded the latest corner. Walking through it now they ended up in a strangely shaped room. It may not have been so strange originally. It may not even have been a room, but a section of the tunnel. It was impossible to tell now. The floor, the walls, even the ceiling were ripped apart. Something plowed several meters in every direction, piling fragments of stone and earth into a few giant, scattered piles. Buffy paused for a moment trying to decide if they should examine this place more closely, but their light source moved decisively through to the other side. She had little choice, but to follow when Willow stopped abruptly. Buffy touched her shoulder in a silent question. The witch responded by pointing into the blackness of the tunnel ahead, her finger glowing a little brighter. The passage was almost eight times the size going out of the room as going in. There could only be one reason to widen it so much. In the darkness it was hard to decipher Willow's expression. Her pupils now covering fully a third of her eyes glowed eerie yellow from the spell. Still, they were Willow's eyes and these were Willow's lips pressed together tighter than vice. She may not have had a witch's telepathy, but it didn't mean Buffy could not read her friend like an open book. The First was here, waiting for them, and though she didn't want this second shot, Willow was ready and she was not afraid.

They walked on, Willow still slightly ahead, followed by Buffy. The rest of the slayers switched to four-wide formation to take advantage of the newly found space. There were two more dig sites on the way, but they blew by as quickly as Andrew could note the locations on his map. They were coming up on the second hour after the initial descent when Willow stopped and her dim hallow faded into the surrounding darkness. As Buffy's eye took a few seconds to readjusted she too saw the fluttering spots on the wall, just a bit lighter shade of black. There must be torches lit a few hundred feet past the next bend of the catacombs. Buffy looked over at Willow. The witch closed her eyes concentrating on their surroundings, then shook her head. No guards, no force fields, not even an alarm spell of any kind. Stinks. There was no indication Leshii made it into the tunnels, but he was at the cathedral. The First had to know they'd find It here sooner rather than later, so where are the precautions?

The lighted room was much larger than the other excavation sites they encountered. The far side was elevated or rather dug less deep than rest of the floor. Two clerics, one wearing a tall hat and clad in black tunic, the other in a more colorful dress with a square scull cap were chanting at a makeshift altar. Atop of the table-like four legged structure sat a large purple crystal. The glow from the artifact seemed to be directed downwards, through the altar and onto a small chest beneath. Thirteen Bringers formed a circle around the clerics. Thirteen blind and death dagger wielders led by an old priest and a middle aged mullah, all and all, a seemingly negligible force, plus she had the element of surprise. "But things aren't always what they seem," Buffy mumbled to herself mindful that the last time she tried to surprise the First's priest and his Bringers back in Sunnydale it cost Xander his eye and three Potentials their lives. Of course, circumstances are different now. There are twelve actual slayers at her side now; her best slayers. So is Willow, who's worth an army all by herself. Then again, it's double the bad guys, too. She flashed Stefka how she wanted her team positioned, then walked into the light.

"So these are the uniforms," Buffy spoke loudly trying to focus attention on her as the slayers took positions around the room. "Neat. Got to tell you, though, not the wisest choice. Not that I give a rat's ass about all the religious connotation, but a bunch of people here are pretty offended."

Fedocious looked over the short girl resting the blade almost as big as her on the shoulder. "It is the your very existence, Woman, and that of your spawn," he nodded in the direction of the slayers, "that is the greatest offense."

"Wow," Buffy simply smiled. "You even talk alike. Do you guys have a pamphlet, or a flier, or something? No? I'd read, seriously. It takes balls to say this to my face. Caleb had them; couldn't keep them."

The clerics have changed their positions as well. They were about forty feet apart with the altar roughly in the middle and the thin line of Bringers spread out between them and the slayers.

"Brother Caleb was a lamb in wolf's clothing," the old Coptic hissed menacingly. "You will find that we are not here to be sacrificed."

"Are you sure? You look like a couple of old goats to me. What do you think, girls?"

"Allaahumma haatha 'annee wa 'an ahli baytee!"1 Nasira shrieked raising her dagger into the air.

"I think she said, 'Let the ass kicking commence!'" The Slayer swung her sword forward in the pre-agreed upon signal and the girls charged at the Bringer line. Buffy herself could not be bothered with the minions. Pushing off the west wall she turned her running start into a high leap over the heads of the fighters straight into Fedocious. Except that she didn't quite make it. The blade she held in front of her scraped excruciatingly against an invisible surface, rudely interrupting her flight and throwing her completely off balance. Buffy fell awkwardly on her side hitting her head on the same barrier that just stopped her sword. With the Bringers in various forms of disablement the other slayers were trying to slash and chop through the same obstacle with just as little effect. Judging from the way her team was positioned Buffy estimated the force field to be elliptical in shape wit the clerics standing in its foci. At the same time she noticed that the crystal that only a moment ago lay so conspicuously on the altar at the center of this invisible ellipse now hovered above it and glowed a suspicious dark color.

"Willow, the force field!" Buffy yelled.

"Already on it," answered the witch from a ledge on the other side of the room. Her eyes were half closed and the hands put together in a rhombus right in front of her moving lips. The crystal flashed. The dark light burst outside the barrier, then, just as swiftly, receded back into the artifact, leaving eight Bringers standing in front of it. Another flash followed half a minute later, doubling the number. The Slayers watched helplessly from the outside as the crystal pulsed itself to a small army that filled the space inside the force field.

"They'll have to open up to let them out, " said Buffy noticing anxious glances of her troops, "Then they're dead."

There was no battle cry: can't scream with a sewn-in mouth. Still, within the confines of the catacombs the sound of two hundred feet rushing forward was deafening enough. Not caring much for casualties, the Bringers simply threw themselves at the slayers who had no choice, but to retreat least they were trampled by the overwhelming numbers. The only one who kept her position was Buffy. In close quarters the tremendous reach of the long sword becomes its main disadvantage. The weight and the length of the blade prevent a warrior from swinging it fast enough to be effective. A regular human warrior, that is. In the powerful hands of the Slayer the sword has become a windmill of death cutting down enemies around her faster than they could approach, rendering their daggers useless. On the downside, her assumption proved faulty. The force field remained in place, apparently allowing exit, but not entrance, she figured as her heal pinned the Bringer against the barrier before punching through the skull. Something else was starting to concern her as well. She wasn't counting, but she was certain the slayers' kill rate was faster than the crystal's creation, yet the number of Bringers was steadily increasing. It took her a few moments to figure out why. Identical robes and ritual scarring has certainly made all the Bringers look similar, but some of them looked way too similar to the ones she killed just a minute ago. The crystal was not just bringing reinforcements; the pulse of the opening portal was also animating Bringers she already slew. They seemed slower, stupider on the second or third reincarnation. In fact, most of Buffy's victims were so badly carved up they were trampled by their attacking kin before they could get to her, but they were still bodies and worked the numbers game perfectly. The catacombs were quickly filling up. Glancing once in a while towards the other slayers Buffy could see the worried look on Stefka's face. Strategy called for always preserving the means of escape and that meant the girl had no choice, but to keep the others retreating towards the passage they entered from leaving Buffy completely surrounded without any hope of reinforcements. If Stefka was beginning to loose faith in Buffy's ability to get out of her predicament, Buffy did not feel the same about Willow. The barrier will be brought down in time. As if to answer her thoughts the invisible bubble flushed bluish for a second and the next Bringer she kicked flew inside, knocking down the reinforcements trying to rush out. "Wait!" the witch's voice rang in her head as the Slayer pushed forward. The warning was timely, Buffy blade passed through just fine, but not her. If she hasn't slowed down she would have knocked the sword right out of her own hands.

"One down, one to go, " Willow answered her silent question. The barrage of crossbow arrows flying over her head signaled that the others were also aware the force field was semi-permeable. The clerics were aware of that as well. Able to move both directions now, some of the Bringers moved in to surround their masters and the crystal, using their bodies as shields. Meanwhile the frequency of the flashes has doubled. Clearly worried the clerics were pushing the artifact to its limit. The Bringers coming through were different now. Seemingly half formed, many of them resembled plain animated corpses, moving slowly, zombie like, puss seeming through their un-sewn eyes. Still, it was all about numbers now; the witch proved stronger than them, their only hope was to run the clock out on her. It was only a matter of minutes before the slayer line between her and their horde will be overwhelmed and pushed out.

For the last fifteen minutes Alice had to make do with just one of her swords as her second got stuck between the fifth and the sixth rib of one of the Bringers and the retreat orders from Stefka gave her no time to recover it.

"Take charge of the line!" she heard her rival shout. Alice watched as the lanky blond shoved both of her axes behind her back and started climbing the catacomb wall. She was about to consider what that was all about when a blade came rushing at her face. She moved, letting the momentum carry the attacker forward, then sliced his back with her sword. When the Bringer fell she noticed a familiar handle sticking out of his side.

"So this is what my lucky day looks like," she sighed pulling out her sword and kicked away the body before it came to life again. She yelled over the clanking weapons for the girls to pull in tighter to compensate for the missing slayer. Whatever Stefka was up to was none of Alice's concern: Willow was sitting on a ledge just a dozen feet behind them. Even a single Bringer getting through might break her concentration. Meanwhile Buffy's role as a human meat grinder was beginning to wear her out. She glanced towards Willow through a rare crack in the enemy ranks to see how she was doing when she saw Stefka climbing the walls towards her position. The girl made good progress keeping high, knocking down any Bringer trying to jump up towards her. At first Buffy thought she was trying to reinforce her and was about to shout her away, when suddenly Stefka pushed off the wall and dived head first into the barrier, flying straight through. The Bringer guard around the crystal may have been sufficient to get in the way of the arrows, but it was no match for a live slayer. In a matter of seconds the girl cleaved her way through and crushed the artifact with her axe just as it was opening another portal. Partially coalesced Bringers collapsed into a liquid mixture of flesh and blood coloring the slayer dark red from head to toe. The cries of celebration died in the slayers' mouths as the Bringer army flooded back within the confines of the barrier. Stefka might have gotten in, but there was no way for her to get out. Buffy and the others could do nothing, but watch as the girl pushed over the altar and working her twin axes to stave off the massive onslaught from behind the barricade.

"Willow!"

"Almost there," the telepathic reply passed the agitation perfectly. Buffy hasn't seen Stefka in the field for a while and she would have appreciated the skills she was displaying now to a much greater degree if she wasn't so terrified for her safety. Still, without the crystal to re-enforce and re-animate the Bringers, the enemy ranks were steadily thinning. Buffy was even starting to think that Stefka might be able to take them all without any help. Fedocious apparently shared her opinion. The cleric abandoned his post at the left foci, and moved surrounded by his body guards into the fray. Buffy could not see him, but she saw a black energy stream burst out of the Bringer crowd and hit Stefka in the chest. The girl shook and dropped her weapons.

"Shoot him!"

The arrows were flying even before Buffy shouted her order, but Fedocious was too tightly surrounded by his minions and as one fell another quickly took his place. Stefka's face was turning black now; she collapsed to her knees, her hands holding her throat as she gasped for breath. Desperately trying to come up with something, Buffy took a few steps back from the force field, then twisting like hammer thrower, sent her sword flying where she thought the cleric was hiding. Powered by the Slayer's strength the four foot steel blade went through three Bringers before the final eight inches pierced Fedocious from the back. Left alone, his partner could not hold the barrier against Willow for even a second. As the field collapsed, Buffy leaped to Stefka's aid grabbing the hands of two Bringers as they were about to plunge their knives into the girl. She snapped them at the wrists, snatching the released weapons out of the air and stabbing their former owners in the neck, all in one motion. Re-armed she rose guard over the unconscious girl ready to face the enemy that never came. Every Bringer has now turned to the other slayers coming into the fight. Buffy checked Stefka's pulse. It was weak, but there.

"Willow!" she yelled, then noticed the witch already standing in front of her covering her ears. "Sorry."

"Go, go, I got her," Willow answered, taking out some of the first aid herbs from her pouch. Buffy quickly assessed the situation around her. The hope for victory behind them, the Bringers were concentrating on playing interference against the slayers as their remaining master was trying to make his way into the passage on the far side of the room.

"Sheelah, get the mullah!" Buffy called to the slayer closest to the escaping cleric.

"Oh, sure! " the girl threw her arms up in indignation, knocking down a Bringer coming behind her, "Let's send the Israeli girl! She must have lots of experience killing Muslims! She probably kills one every morning to get some blood into her matzah!"

"SOMEBODY get him!"

"I'm on it!" Dasha yelled out eagerly, then abruptly turned around. "No, I'm not," she mumbled scrambling back. Out of the passage a giant figure emerged to meet the pursuer.

"Fedocious is dead, " his partner addressed It, panting heavily.

"Of course he is, I'm the first to know," the Creature answered and cringed. "Oh crap, I punned again. What can you do, the name just lends itself to it. Go, I'll deal with them."

Complete silence descended upon the catacombs. The few remaining Bringers vanished into the passage following their master while the slayers stood in silent awe of the monstrosity before them. The snap of Buffy's fingers rang loudly in the dead air, bringing the girls out of their momentary paralysis.

"Set formation. Secondary weapons, load." The slayers lined up behind Buffy. Each took a couple of brown pills from her pocket and quickly swallowed them, then loaded the crossbow from the quiver on her left. The Creature stood unmoving. It watched the slayers preparations with amusement, the features on Its gray face slowly taking the familiar form Buffy saw each morning in the mirror.

"Look at this," It spoke as Its vocal chords adjusted to fit the new look, "Willow's catering service delivers again."

"Fire," the same voice answered sending flying the flock of uranium tipped arrows into the Creature. It barely flinched, shaking off the barrage.

"And me without my bug repellent," It chuckled advancing.

"I told you It will adjust," Buffy heard Willow's quiet voice in her head.

"Hand to hand!" Buffy shouted and the slayers drew the dull glowing blades out of their sheaves. The effects of the radiation should be proportional to the surface area of the weapon which would make each sword at least twice as effective as a dozen arrows combined. She was about to signal an attack, when she saw Willow push through the ranks and step in between them and the Creature. A slight wave of the witch's hand was all too familiar to Buffy. She punched the air with all her strength, but the barrier held.

"What are you doing?"

"What _are_ you doing, Willow?" the Creature repeated Buffy's question. "Do you really expect this field to protect them from me?"

"It's to protect them from me." Willow's voice was eerie quiet. There was no anger, or fear. She seemed calm to the point of detachment. The little jar she held in her right hand suddenly exploded covering the Creature in thousands of tiny little shiny specs.

"Really, Willow, pixie dust?" It grimaced in a mock disappointment. "Are you planning to float me away now?"

"No," replied the witch just as calmly. "You'll float yourself away. I'm just going to set you on fire." With that she opened up the palm of her left hand and a little green flame danced between her fingers. The specs covering the Creature responded with similar glow sending It into convulsions. The hollers of pain strained the ear drums of everyone in the room. Covering their ears, the slayers watched as the giant monster flopped on the ground like a fish on a deck. It seemed to have been trying to regain enough concentration to cast a counter spell, but anytime Its movements drifted towards the coherent, Willow would smash It against the floor or the ceiling. Finally, a snap of claws on Its left upper hand activated the teleportation spell sending It somewhere that was not here.

The momentary silence quickly exploded into cheers. The field dividing them gone, Buffy locked her friend in a heartfelt hug.

"I knew you could do it! What exactly did you do?"

"Just a new spell I came up with. I call it 'Chernobyl in a can'"

"Not funny," piped in Dasha standing close enough to overhear.

"No, it's not, " Buffy seconded the Ukrainian. She pulled away taking a concerned look at that strange smile still stuck on Willow's face. "Exactly how much radiation was that?"

"It's alright. The force field should have protected everyone."

"Everyone except you!"

"I'm fine. Really, " Willow twirled her hands in front of Buffy. "See, no flaking of the skin, no falling out of the hair..."

"It's radiation, Willow! Who knows what it did to you and how it will come out!"

"Well, that's one of the benefits of lesbian relationship, a spare set of ovaries." A horrified expression on her friend's face shut her mid-giggle. "It was a joke."

Buffy grabbed a handful of pills out of her pocket and jammed her hand in Willow's mouth.

"Swallow, now. The first thing you're doing when we get back is going to a doctor, understand?"

"You know, there is such a thing as iodine poisoning," Willow grumbled massaging her throat.

"Can I get some help over here?"

Both turned to see Lili holding up Stefka. The girl was conscious now, but still struggling to breathe.

"Didn't you fix her?"

"I thought I did, " Willow replied confused and hurried over to the sick slayer. Buffy looked over the rest of her troops as they drifted past her. A few cuts and bruises, but nothing requiring urgent care. The target of their curiosity was Alice who was crouching next to the demolished altar.

"I guess this is what we came here for," she said reaching for the small chest laying at the foot of the stand.

"Don't touch it!"

They forgot all about Andrew. The teen emerged from his hiding place with clear determination to compensate for his inabilities to contribute to the battle. "Are we really that dense?" he yelled, no longer addressing just Alice. "Are we really going to step on the same rake twice?"

The slayers looked at the boy, then at each other.

"Not fluent in gardening metaphors," Buffy responded for all of them.

"They went by here!" Andrew gesticulated widely. "There was like a hundred Bringers here and none of them bothered to pick it up? Are we supposed to think they forgot it?"

"You think it's another trap," Buffy said pensively. "You think the First wants us to have it."

"Duh!"

"I saw a Bringer go through, like it's not there," Oksana broke the momentary descended silence.

"Exactly! " Andrew nodded. "There's the very thing they supposedly came here to collect, and they just go by."

"No, it go through, it," the girl stumbled trying to locate the proper set of words in her limited Italian vocabulary. "...like ghost. Not touching, go through..." She tried to demonstrate by folding her hand into an imaginary box and poking her finger through, but catching the strange glances from her friends quickly realized she was showing not at all what she meant to show.

"I think I got it," Buffy coming to rescue of now silent and increasingly reddish Oksana. She tapped the chest with her foot, "Looks solid to me." She paused, pensively playing with her banks. "Then again, maybe it is me: another 'slayer-only' thingamajig. Hey, Junior Watcher, you passed the 'watching' part with flying colors, how about the reading portion? There's stuff written on the box."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Well?" asked Lili for the third time in the last five minutes. Willow had both of her hands on Stefka's face turning it alternatively left and right. It started out as a purposeful examination, but turned into a tick as the witch became completely engrossed in her thoughts.

"What's wrong with her?" the small French girl finally resorted to shouting.

"What is wrong with her?" Willow whispered quietly to herself having tuned out Lili some time ago. "It looked like a life draining spell that got screwed up and didn't work as quickly as it was supposed to, but none of my counter spells are working either." She kept turning Stefka's head back and forth then threw up her hands in a frustrated epiphany. "You waste of a perfectly good healing spell, you're magic resistant, aren't you? That's how you got through the force field! Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"It didn't come up, " Stefka managed to ejaculate between gasps.

"'Didn't come up'? Do you have any idea what would happen if I tried to teleport you without compensating?"

"What?" Lili responded instead.

"Well, most likely, nothing, but there is a chance you would get teleported half way and I don't mean distance wise."

"Sorry, " Stefka breathed out.

"Anything else about you I should know that didn't come up?"

"No, " the slayer answered a little too quickly.

"Fine," Willow sighed benevolently. "I'm done here."

"What do you mean, you're done?" Lili pulled her back down by the sweater. "She's barely breathing and you didn't even say what's wrong with her!"

"It was a life draining spell of some sort; doesn't really matter what kind. If it was someone else, she would have been dead in seconds, but with her freaky resistance level she made it. On the downside, it also means my healing spells are pretty much useless."

"Can't you do that compensating thing?"

"Not with these ingredients and by the time we get home it'll be pointless."

"She's going to die?"

"No, by then she'll fully recover. Stop freaking," Willow let out a frustrated sigh looking for anything napkin like in her pouch. Stefka was covered in Bringer gore which meant so were her hands now. For a moment she was tempted to use the pink cotton jacket tied around Lili's waste as she watched her help the injured slayer to her feet. Stefka's breathing was becoming a bit more regular now.

"Thank you," she let out weakly.

"You're welcome, " the witch answered mechanically.

"For what?" Lili's eyes went owl sized with indignation, "You didn't do anything!"

"I...explained. I think Buffy needs me now," she added, quick to make her away out of suddenly awkward situation. The circle of slayers parted to reveal Andrew crouching around the chest. Willow sat by and gave both a look.

"Well?"

"Can't make heads or tails of this thing," the young man responded more whiny than grouchy. "It has cuneiforms, hieroglyphs, and pictograms all at once. It's like the tower of Babel without the tower part. I think the sentence on the lid describes whatever's inside, but all that stuff around the edges that's almost certainly a spell. Don't you think? I'm sure it is," he continued not waiting for her answer, "That's how you usually do a protection spell, isn't it?" Willow barely opened her mouth to respond, but it was no use. "It's a weird one, though," Andrew rattled on. "It's almost like the sentences span across the edges."

"So what does it say?" Willow finally managed to get a word in.

"That's the thing. Cuneiforms look Sumerian and the rest seems Egyptian, but taken together they don't make any sense. It's just a guess, but I think it's one language here, with each word or phrase containing both cuneiforms and pictograms depending on whatever grammar that's being used here. Only I can't figure out how to combine them properly. The best I got is on the bottom left, " he traced three hieroglyphs with his finger. "It mentions 'bad touching'"

"You mean like naughty touching?" Dasha giggled flirtatiously.

"There's a powerful displacement enchantment around it," Willow semi-responded. "It's possible it shifted the chest out of our reality whenever something evil approached. The clerics were probably working on breaking the spell. It would explain why they were still here and why the Bringers couldn't take it with them when they ran off."

"So what you're saying is that it's not a trap and we can take it with us," Buffy summed up.

The witch looked up at her wild-eyed.

"What?"

"Sorry, sorry, " Buffy quickly realized what she just did. "You are not saying that. I'm saying that. Based on a full set of evidence and in no way hinging on your recommendation," she grabbed the chest off the floor, "Shall we?"

"What about him?" Oksana pointed to Fedocious. "Do we just leave him?"

"Well, it's the catacombs, " Andrew replied brushing off his pants, "So, technically, he's considered buried by just being here."

Willow opened her bag, retrieving a couple of Ziplocs. "If he's staying here, then I'm going to take some samples for research. Andrew, you've got a camera right? Take some pictures of him and the surroundings."

"Someone's been watching too much CSI, " Buffy quipped as Willow walked around placing numbered markers around the ritual spot and using small tongs to drop flakes of ash into her 'evidence' bags. The other slayers gathered around Fedocious' body to get a closer look at their adversary.

"That guy Buffy killed in Sunnydale was a priest, too, right?" Kate seemingly addressed the entire group. "I don't think this a coincidence."

"Unlikely," Buffy responded, joining her team. "But the cross denominational thing is weird. I mean what could possibly unit a Muslim, a Baptist, and whatever this guy is?"

"Rabid anti-Semitism?" Sheelah answered her rhetorical question.

"Good one!" Buffy interjected though the laughter, but the expression on Sheelah's face wiped her smile right off. "You are not serious, are you?"

"Well," the girl paused suddenly feeling all eyes on her. "They could have struck a deal. They help the First with Its Chosen ones problem and in return It helps them with their Chosen ones problem."

The silence persisted as Buffy's mind fruitlessly grasped for the appropriate talking points in her cultural sensitivity training until finally shooting a look of desperation to Willow, but her friend was not inclined to be helpful.

"Actually, the saddest thing in all of this," she said, zipping up the last of her bags, "is that this is the most comprehensive theory we have so far."

"I never thought about it, but you're like the Chosen Chosen one," Lili commented playfully.

"A double chosen," someone added from the group.

"Sounds like ice cream."

"Anybody else hungry?"

"I know a place!" Enise shouted out as the girls voiced their full support for the eating idea. "It's a falafel shop, not far from here. They have an outside sitting area and open super early."

"Four in the morning?" Buffy raised an eyebrow.

"No, seven. We still need to walk back and wash up. Some more than others, " she winked in Stefka's direction.

"I suppose. Are there any objections?" The question was addressed mostly to Andrew as the quartermaster of the expedition.

"Always go where the locals go, that's my motto," the young man replied. "Enise Hanim2, lead the way."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was still very early in the morning and the Spring air was cool despite the blazing sun. The girls brought out a few additional two-seaters from inside the café and pooled together a decent banquet table. Buffy and Willow chose to sit away from the noisy teens. They were almost joined by Andrew, but to their relief Dasha pulled him into a seat next to hers. Buffy took a sip of her authentic Turkish coffee, closed her eyes, and smiled. What a perfect way to end this night and what a heavenly way start a day.

"Don't say it."

"What?" Buffy blurted out startled by Willow's unexpectedly forceful command.

"You'll jinx it. Don't say it," the witch repeated without lifting her eyes off her Blackberry.

"Stating the facts is not a jinx. It's not like I'm extrapolating the future. I'm just saying that the past few days have kicked serious ass, culminating in the serene moment we are having right now."

"You are jinxing it."

"I'm not and you're just messing with me. I know you feel it just like everyone else. Look, Alice just politely passed Stefka some humus instead of throwing it at her. We are making breakthroughs on every front!"

"Maybe you're right; we may have another one in the making. I just got a text from Giles that based on the photos Andrew took our clerics might be Necromancers."

"Holly crap!" Buffy almost spilled her coffee at the revelation. "Giles texts?"

"He spelled Necromancers with a capital 'N', " Willow added pensively.

"Drama queen."

"No, I think it means something. He says there's more information at the Covenant libraries that he needs to look at. Looks like we are finally getting a decent theory."

"So you don't think we've stumbled upon an anti-Jewish conspiracy?"

"Please, " Willow bristled, "there are no such things as anti-Jews conspiracies."

"Seriously?"

"Conspiracies, " Willow answered, finally putting down her phone, "by definition, are put together in secret, but historically, any time someone wanted to kill a bunch of Jews, they just went ahead and killed a bunch of Jews. What's there to keep secret? It's not like anybody cares."

"I do!"

"Well, good for you," the witch nodded approvingly and lifted up her coffee cup. "L'chaim3"

"What you said," Buffy replied lifting up hers. She took a sip and leaned back in her chair taking in the aroma of the fresh brew and early morning sun. She closed her eyes to take her relaxed state up a notch when an electronic chime rudely interrupted.

"Your phone just won't leave you alone today, will it, Will?"

"It's your phone," she answered taking the culprit out of her spell pouch, "You forgot I have it, didn't you? I have your wallet, too, in case you were planning to pay for this after party."

"I so do!" Buffy exclaimed flipping the phone closed. "I'd even buy a round of beers if they served it, because my text tops yours. Apparently I will get Dawn's exact location by end of day tomorrow.

"What?" Willow practically chocked on her humus cracker. "Don't tell me you found a better witch?"

"God, no! There are no better witches. You say you couldn't narrow it down beyond Franconia, and as far as I'm concerned it can't be done. It just there's some info coming from another source and feet on the ground to check it out."

"I thought you didn't want the girls anywhere near Leshii?"

"I don't want anybody anywhere near Leshii, but you know these independent contractors."

"They are independent?"

"Exactly."

"Speaking of independent contractors..." Willow began

"Oh shoot! I forgot to pay you again, didn't I?"

"It's no big deal," the redhead shrugged, "I get free room and board."

"You know, this wouldn't happen if you just get back on the employee payroll. Our system is top notch, at least according to our former and perhaps future CIO," said Buffy with her patented invitational half smile, which remained in place for a good minute as her friend stared her down.

"You can't have everything go your way, " Willow finally spoke. "Don't be greedy. That's the surest way to jinx your good day; worse even than talking about it."

"Alright, alright. I'll bask silently in the goodness of the week so far. Starting now."

And so she did.

1 Arabic. A short prayer uttered before Udhiyah (animal sacrifice)

2 A Turkish honorific (corresponds to Ms. and follows the first name)

3 A Hebrew toast, translated 'To Life'


	8. Chapter 8: Research Intermission

**Chapter 8: Research Intermission**

The echo in the castle corridors had a very strange delay causing Dawn to stop every twenty meters or so thinking someone was following her. Invariably realizing she was hearing her own footsteps she would swear at herself than swear she wouldn't stop again only to do exactly that a few dozen meters later because the direction of the sounds seemed different from before. She knew she was alone in this section. The gangsters congregated in the main chamber of the east wing to celebrate Yozh's return. This knowledge made any noise suspicious and the low hanging electric lights did nothing to make the place feel less eerie. Of course, there was a logical explanation for everything. The difference in echoes was probably caused by the tent covering the castle. During the day it made it appear as though the building was undergoing reconstruction to any countryside passerby. It was also thick enough to block the electric lights inside, making it look as deserted as ever at night. The third, and not the least important, function was to stop the rain from washing into the building through the numerous holes in the ceiling, as well complete absence of the ceiling in some rooms and corridors. The uneven covering in both shape and material was the most likely culprit in making Dawn so jumpy as she headed towards the library in the west wing.

Dawn winced in pain as she pulled open the door. The first thing she was ordered to do when they arrived at the castle was to see Leshii's doctor. The solemn gray haired man of few words and even fewer bedside manners fitted her with new prosthetics. While she was certainly impressed with how much more flexibility her new digits possessed she wished he would also be familiar with a much older invention called anesthetic. Her lower lip was still bleeding from the time she spent chewing on it to keep herself from screaming. Is everyone working for Leshii a sadist? The library was essentially a large room filled with bookshelves. The vast number of volumes moved to the castle seemed to indicate that Leshii planned to stay here for a while. Dawn stopped in the middle of the room, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath trying to relax before beginning her experiment. It was a long shot, but it was the best she could come up with. Either she was going completely crazy or something truly strange was happening to her. Frankfurt airport was the last straw. Even counting the large number of English, Russian, French, and Italian speakers that must pass through it there was no way to account for her understanding every single conversation within an earshot. Weirder still was that as soon as she considered the language to be outside the ones she knew based on the speakers appearance the words would devolve into gibberish as though while the knowledge was there her conscious mind refused to recognize information it did not remember learning. Dawn opened her eyes. Grab a book and read. Don't look at the title. Don't think about the letters. Just understand. She grabbed the first volume on the third shelf of the case closest to her and flipped it open. "I scarce did know you, uncle: there lies your niece, whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly stopped: I know this act shows horrible and grim. Poor Desdemona..." Wait a minute. She angrily slammed the cover. No English literature student has ever hated the Bard as much as Dawn loathed him at that moment. She walked over to the case opposite the first and grabbed a book from the middle of the fourth shelf. "Mighty net, protector of his people, raging flood-wave who destroys even walls of stone! Offspring of Lugalbanda, Gilgamesh is strong to perfection..." Dawn stopped reading and just stared at the pages. The symmetrical patterns of the cuneiform have never looked so simple and clear. She slowly walked over to a table in the middle of book stack forest and continued to flip through the pages. Somehow "The Epic of Gilgamesh" seemed so much more interesting in the original.

"Are you actually reading Middle Sumerian?" a man's voice interrupted her.

"Apparently so," she replied and lifted her head to check out the thin figure standing over her. For some seconds they stared silently at each other.

"Oh, I'm sorry. How rude of me!" the man quickly extended his hand. "I'm Martin McClure."

"Dawn Summers," she replied with a handshake without getting up.

"Yes, I know," Martin smiled. "I'm very excited to be working with you."

"Oh?" she looked at him with suspended interest.

"Of course. A woman who's been raised by the Slayer and under the tutelage of Rupert Giles and Willow Rosenberg. I expected your skills to be quite impressive and so far I'm most definitely not disappointed," he nodded in the direction of the text.

"You were a Watcher, weren't you?" Dawn said putting the book back on the shelf. The Englishman smiled again.

"You are quite right. I graduated from the academy in ninety seven and worked for the Council till the end; their end. I thought I was going to join your sister, but Leshii wanted me here full time."

Dawn quickly turned around a bit disturbed.

"You were working for Leshii while you were with the Council?"

"Yes, I was hired not long after graduation."

"So you are one of those 'fight evil with evil' types?"

"No, I'm one of those 'likes expensive shoes' types," The former watcher snickered lightly. "Everyone is here for the money"

"Not me"

"No, you are special"

Dawn was about to snap back, but what would normally be a cliché sarcastic remark lacked the appropriate tone, as if Martin actually meant what he said.

"You became a Watcher. You must have thought you were special once."

"I suppose. It was mostly uncle Quentin who thought that."

"As in Quentin Traverse? So is that it? The pressure of being the head honcho's relative got to you?"

"Oh, no, I surpassed all expectations. I'm quite brilliant, you know. That was the problem."

"You sure it wasn't excessive modesty?"

"That, too," the Watcher smiled, "My performance at the Academy and my familial connections earned me an invitation to Shadow Knights and my cockiness prevented me from turning it down."

"What knights?"

They switched places. Dawn was standing at the desk while Martin sat in her chair admiring the black wingtips at the end of his long thin legs stretched out across the table top.

"Secret organizations tend to attract people who like secret organizations," he quipped, "When they grow large, as the Watchers' Council has, they invariably beget other secret organization within it, and so forth. The Shadow Knights were a group of senior Watchers with special dedication to the Cause. I became one in April of ninety eight, just in time to witness how special it was"

"What happened in April of ninety eight?"

"You should know."

"April. That's when Faith went bonkers, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was. A month later Buffy Summers quit the Council over her vampire boyfriend and we were left with precisely zero Slayers. The Knights could not abide the situation, but as you know the only way to create a new Slayer is to kill the old one. Two years before your sister's clinical death made Faith possible. It was decided that the incident must be replicated."

"Ok, so it's not exactly ethical…"

"However, there was a significant impediment to that solution. No one was there to time precisely how long Miss Summers had remained dead. What if Faith was brought back before her death is official with whatever It is that runs the Slayer line? It would be difficult enough to arrange one attempt at a hospital; two would almost certainly prompt an investigation. Why risk the integrity of the Cause for a multiple murder?" Martin stopped. The condescending smile he started with has turned into a pained grin and now was slowly melting from his face. As the pause grew Dawn wondered if she was supposed to say something when the Watcher finally spoke, "As I witnessed those distinguished warriors of Good voting to execute a seventeen year old girl I knew that I could never have the sufficient strength of conviction to take a life. Leshii will never ask me to. He has enough killers."

"'Lots of killers'. I don't think Monster has that category. What job board did you go through?"

"Leshii found me. I was skimming off the top of the artifact smuggling network the Council was running. Leshii was the arbiter on the deals they had with various crime syndicates. His accountants sniffed me out, and I was offered a better deal. I am always open to a better deal. Perhaps someday you'll have one for me."

"What makes you think that?"

"You said you are not in this for the money. I believe you. You have your own agenda, well, the new Council's agenda most likely. Your interests and Leshii's align for now, but not forever. When you are ready to leave, you'll make me an offer, trust me. Whether or not I will take it is another matter."

Dawn wasn't sure what to say. Leshii tolerated her double loyalty for a very specific reason. If he heard what Martin told her just now he would probably execute him on the spot. The Englishman wasn't stupid which meant his offer was more likely a provocation. For all his compliments he must view her as a threat to his position here as the occult know-it-all. Best to tread lightly.

"Why wasn't Faith killed? How hard is it to kill someone in a coma?" she asked giving no acknowledgment of his offer.

"Faith's death wasn't in the cards. Literally. The Council's psychics predicted the next Slayer will arise amongst the unknown Potentials, like Miss Summers. With your sister happily succeeding all on her own the Knights were afraid that if the new Slayer did not come from among already indoctrinated, she would be more likely to follow your sister's example than stay subservient to the Watchers. To answer the question you dare not ask, yes, Miss Summers' assassination was also proposed, but voted down. I guess they felt this was that line between fighting villains and being them."

"How did you vote?"

"Opposed, of course."

"But 'Yes' on Faith?"

"Of course. Every vote I had cast in the next three years was along what I felt would the majority. A few times that pitted me against my uncle. He thought I was showing character!"

"You are a good liar"

"Thank you"

"But not good enough," she snapped unable to wait any longer to take a sharper poke at his pompous confidence, "The hesitation at introduction, a dead giveaway. For a second you forgot that while we've met before I wasn't aware of it. What's with the masquerade?"

Dawn's offensive had the desired effect. There was a noticeable pause as the smile glued to McClure's face grew more overtly fake by the second.

"My costume was not a disguise," he finally recovered, "I'm allergic to Peru's mountain plant life. The clothes hermetically sealed me from pollen, which resulted in a need of a voice box. Otherwise I could not communicate."

"Do you really expect me to believe this?"

"Do you really expect me to tell you something different?"

"You two can get better acquainted tomorrow."

Dawn turned towards Leshii's voice and gasped loudly, unconsciously retreating a step. What stared back at her looked more like a scull with some sort of half burned plastic stretched over it and a few patches of white hair stuck on top. She has seen her share of monsters and ghouls, but what made this creature so horrifying was the lone green eye looking at which one could not escape the notion that this was once a human being.

"That's right," he spoke unperturbed, "you have never seen me without my mask"

"I'm sorry," Dawn stuttered, "I..."

"No need to apologize, " Martin interrupted getting off the chair, "There are no feelings there to be hurt, " he snickered, throwing a cautious glance in Leshii's direction. "We will see each other tomorrow. It was a pleasure, and I'm sure will continue to be so." The Englishman made a hurried exist perfectly anticipating his boss's intentions. Left one on one Dawn felt doubly awkward. She was already angry at herself for having lost her cool and tried to compensate by looking straight at his face subsequently realizing that this may be interpreted as staring. She abruptly averted her eyes; perhaps too abruptly? She looked back at Leshii who still hasn't said a word and seemed to be studying her confusion.

"Is there something you wanted to talk about?" Dawn finally blurted out in a desperate hope that a conversation might help her locate a proper level of eye contact.

"Your mission was a success, you should be celebrating with the others," Leshii answered sitting down in Martin's vacated chair.

"I don't feel like celebrating."

"You are still upset over that village incident I take it"

"I'm sure it's nothing you can relate to."

"You set out to help those people, but caused their death instead. The result was completely opposite of your intentions. I had my share of failures when I was young. They come less frequently now because I draw a lesson from each one. Have you?"

"Learned and memorized."

"I see. Tell me, then, why did you fail?"

It sort of worked. After just a few phrases Dawn was able to find her rhythm which allowed her to better examine the face across. It was mutilated to the point of losing any age specific characteristics and Leshii's low somewhat hoarse voice made him sound a lot older than his twenty five years. Together with book stacks towering above them the conversation have stirred up a weird sense of déjà vu in Dawn. How many times did Buffy leave her to be babysat by Giles in the school library as she left to patrol?

"I took a drastic action in a situation I knew very little about," she answered taking a few seconds to compose a proper response. "I was rash and did not think through the consequences of my actions."

"No, that is just a symptom. Why didn't you think things through?"

"I don't know. I got emotional, I suppose," she stumbled.

"You didn't think things through because you didn't want to. You didn't care about those people."

"That's not true!"

"Yes, it is."

"Don't tell me how I feel!"

"Are you going to cry again? Do you think your tears mean you care? What about the others?"

"What others?"

"Do you think this is the first massacre that happened there? Do you think it's the last? There are people being murdered by the score, as we speak, somewhere in the world. You're smart enough to know that. Why not cry for them?"

His tone has changed now. The questions were coming out quick and abrupt

"It doesn't work like that. It's different"

"Did you cry when your sister died?"

"What?" the question caught Dawn completely unawares.

"Your sister was dead for several months three years ago. Did you cry when she passed?"

"Yes"

"Was her death your fault?"

"Yes," Dawn moved her lips with hardly a sound.

"Do you think you would have cried less if it wasn't?" Leshii paused for a second, but he wasn't expecting an answer, "You would in Chechnya. You do not cry because of what happened to them, you cry because of what you did. Your tears are for yourself and yet you claim you care."

To have this mass murderer question her ability to empathize was unfathomable.

"If I didn't care why would I try to help them in first place, then? Care to explain that?"

"Instinct," Leshii's tone became once again slow and lecturing and Dawn got a distinct impression that this is what he wanted to say to her in the first place and their entire previous exchange was just him steering her in the needed direction. "Humans are a social animal. As such certain altruistic tendencies had to evolve for them to survive. As any other instinct, hunger or sex, it regularly pops up in a form of an urge that requires satisfaction. I saw this all the time on the streets: a passerby throws a five ruble note into a vagrant's hat and walks away pleased with himself. Why is he pleased? At best the vagrant would be back begging on the same corner tomorrow. At worst, he'll buy a bottle of vodka, pass out, and freeze to death, as many have. Was the passerby an idiot? No, he just didn't think things through because he didn't really care. Like one takes a sip of water when thirsty, he felt an urge and satisfied it in the most efficient manner that came to mind. There's no more nobility in this kind of charity than in taking a piss. That's what you did, Dawn. You pissed all over those people."

"Fuck you!"

"You said you came here to learn, so listen," Leshii continued calmly, "These random acts of kindness are no different from any other random acts in that the results they produce are random. The probability of success is directly proportional to the attention you devote to your goal. You thought you were being generous, but you were not. You wasted valuable time and material to satisfy your needs; resources that could have been used to make a real difference elsewhere."

"I'm sorry, but what is it exactly about the way you live your life that makes you qualified to give advice on how to properly interact with other human beings?" Dawn has finally composed herself enough to snap back properly.

"I may not have a proper degree, but I studied for two years with a preeminent psychiatrist"

"Was that before or after you cut off his arms and legs?"

"I have removed his legs when he arrived so that he would not be distracted with thoughts of escape," Leshii answered in the same matter of fact tone, "Seventeen months later I have removed his arms as a precautionary measure after his second suicide attempt. I executed him six moths after that, when his mental state broke down beyond the point usefulness."

"This is all perfectly logical to you, isn't it?"

"You are tired. It makes you pointlessly adversarial. Take a nap. Zemfira will wake you in three hours and prepare you for tonight's assignment. I think you will enjoy this one."

The last sentence was so unexpected considering the source that Dawn's anger evaporated on the spot. She was curious. She felt dead tired, too, which is why she turned around the left the library without another word.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The sound of techno beat was still hammering at Dawn's ears. It wasn't the music anymore; somehow the wheels have found the same rhythm in the groves of concrete. The spotlights of the club were well imitated by the sparing clouds alternatively hiding and revealing the bright countryside stars. The energy of the dance was replaced by the windshield smashing the air at a hundred and forty kilometers per hour and letting the currents carry her long hair all the way to the back seat of the tiny convertible. Dawn threw up her hands and yelled as loud as she could, laughing loudly at nothing in particular.

"Do you do that a lot?"

Dawn fell back into her seat and looked over at Leshii smiling

"Do I do what a lot?"

"Pour your drinks out when you think nobody is looking so you can pretend to be drunk."

"Often enough," she replied, her smile gone. "Drunks can get away with doing and saying pretty much anything. Not that I'm concerned about being judged by someone who gets his kicks out of going on a date with a girl dolled up to look like his sister."

The car swerved ever so lightly.

"I can't see you glamor. I simply asked Zemfira to give you a disguise. She has picked a poor subject for a joke."

"I don't look that much like her," Dawn moved quickly into damage control, "If anything, I still look more like me. She just gave me blonde hair, a couple inches in height, and a few in...uhm...the bust. Quite a few, actually," she gazed downwards and adjusted her blouse for what must have been the twentieth time. "If these were real and weighed as much as they looked I'd thrown my back out for sure. I going on a limb and say that girl has body issues," she smiled looking over to the driver's side. Leshii didn't reply, his eye squarely on the road as it has been for the last forty minutes. If anyone of them was looking like Stefka it would be him. Dawn wondered if she didn't know who it was whether she would consider him handsome. The car cabin was darker than the club and she couldn't see the defects in his makeup anymore. They ended up staying less than two hours before it started to droop. No wonder he sticks mostly with the glasses and that ghoulish rubber bottom half.

"Zemfira didn't pick the club," she started slowly. "I recognized the DJ there; he played in Rome a couple of times. We weren't there to case anything, were we?"

"The only place my sister is safe is with me, but I had to let her go to Rome because she was deeply unhappy"

"Stefka? Unhappy living around vampires and murderers? You don't say!"

"Her religious indoctrination and the derivative altruistic tendencies were not the issue. I can work with a different system of values. It's the intangibles. My sister does not waste her time needlessly, yet she's comes often to these clubs. I wanted to understand, to see what she sees."

Dawn shook her head.

"You are missing the obvious. Stefka is a girl. Girls like dancing. Most of them also like drinking, flirting with boys or girls. It's normal"

"I don't disagree. What I can't figure out is whether she goes there to understand 'normal' so she can relate better to others or to actually feel normal because that's what she wants."

"You don't admit a possibility that she likes normal things because beneath all her quirks she really is normal? I spent a lot of time with her, she's nowhere near the mountain of crazy that you are, trust me."

"She's certainly not like me, but she is not normal, either. Trust me," Leshii answered in a strange and final way that sucked all the life out of the topic. The autobahn ended and they were back on the country highway. The car speed dropped almost in half, the howling of the air around them abated. The relative silence that descended upon the vehicle made Dawn uncomfortable and she tried to revive the conversation.

"So was this your first time at the club?"

"No. When I was young Zemfira and I would often come to these places, but for a different reason. She was there to hunt."

"And you?"

"I was there to watch. My sister was studying to be a Vampire Slayer, so I was studying vampires."

"I don't get it. If you were preparing for her becoming a Slayer, why are you so mad at Willow for making her one?"

"Being ready for the worst case scenario is not the same as wanting it"

"What did you want? What was your best case scenario?"

"Every Potential has an age window when she can become a Slayer. It's different for each one, but never before thirteen and never after twenty. Upon that birthday, the very day, I would take my sister and disappear."

"Where to?"

"Anywhere. I have made more money than two people can possibly spend in a dozen lifetimes."

"I don't know," Dawn shook her head, "Somehow I don't see Stefka liking the high life."

"Whatever she wanted, she'd have it. Whether it's a palace in the Caribbean or an orphanage in Calcutta slums is irrelevant. Whatever she needed to be happy"

"Being a slayer makes her happy."

"Perhaps. But she is not safe"

"Who is?" Dawn scoffed. "When an apocalypse comes, it comes for everybody."

"Yes, and heroes put down their lives to stop it. I don't want it to be my sister's."

"Ditto"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Two men were waiting for them outside. They pulled away the tarp to let the car in and Leshii pulled up to the side gate. The narrow winding stairway immediately behind it led straight to the upper floor where the sleeping quarters were put up. Dawn hasn't come this way before, but as far as she could tell hers should be the second door on the left past the corner. Ahead of her Leshii stopped and opened what must have been his room. Dawn hesitated for a second trying to come up with some clever parting words when the hand on her shoulder nudged her gently, but firmly inside. Three steps inside she stopped again. She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't. She felt her mind melt into some sort of sludge unable to formulate words or actions. Something deep inside of her was fighting to break through this morass of fear and resignation to the inevitable, but could only watch herself walked over to the bed. Her shoes removed first, then her dress. Dawn closed her eyes trying to suppress the last vestiges of her conciseness and drift away completely as did that time before when she was jolted back into reality. She was on top; his hands were on her hips moving her in a steady rhythm. She thrust her arms out for balance pressing her hands into his chest. As she did that, Leshii's let go of her hips and grabbed her wrists instead, pulling them higher until she felt her fingers clasp around his throat. The second it happened, he let go, letting his arms fall by his sides. He was completely immobile now beneath her. She squeezed harder, feeling the pulse beneath her fingers. She moved faster, squeezing her thighs, driving her sharp knees under his ribs, feeling her strength as the flesh beneath her gave way. Her eyes were fully open now, staring down the green one below her, as she squeezed his throat ever harder matching her increasing tempo. As the energy inside her built up she moved her hands higher, sinking her nails into his cheeks, ripping of the remains of his makeup. The strands of plastic mold flew onto the floor, the sheets, everywhere. She felt moisture on her fingertips, she must have drawn blood, but she didn't care. She gasped loudly as the climax hit her and fell onto his chest.

They lay like that for a few minutes. As her breathing returned to normal Leshii shifted the girl on the other side of the bed and got up. Dawn watched as he pulled on his pants and sat in the desk chair on the other side of the room. Only now she realized his bed had no blanket or even a pillow. She picked up her dress off the floor and covered herself with it. The room was very dark but the desk was near the window and Dawn could easily make out Leshii silhouette as he picked something out of the drawers. She could probably go back to her room now, but she didn't want to. She wasn't afraid anymore.

"Do you think I'm broken? You keep trying to fix me." She didn't mean to whisper, but the words came out barely audible. Leshii swirled his chair around to face her. There was a long wooden pipe in his hands that he was filling with darkish powder.

"Is that what you think I was doing?"

"I don't know. Not really experienced enough to judge."

"Was this your first time?"

"What?" she balked, "Oh, you mean, consensual. I guess. No. I don't know. Is it really a 'yes' if you are not sure a 'no' is allowed?"

The pipe was lit now. The smell hit Dawn almost immediately. It was sweet, but it wasn't pot.

"Consent or lack thereof provides for two very different experiences for both parties," Leshii answered taking a few puffs. "I was looking for one and not the other."

"That's good to know"

"Doesn't mean I won't"

"Good to know that, too. I take it you've had plenty of both. Anybody long-term since Zemfira?

"No, " he shook his head. "She brings me women sometimes and takes them in the morning. I rarely see them a second time. I suppose she kills them."

"She actually brings you girls? That's generous of her, but if you sleeping with other people wasn't an issue, why did you breakup?"

"There was no breakup because there was no relationship. I slept with her for a while and then I stopped.

"Alright," Dawn smirked, "Why did you stop?

"She thinks it is because I no longer find her immature body desirable. That's not true."

"Ewww!"

"I never had any desire for her."

"I don't get it"

"It is said that you can only learn so much about the world by reading, but there are things you can only learn by doing. It is the same with people. You can only learn so much by conversation, but to truly know them..."

"You must do them?"

"Yes. I was young and knew little. She had a lot to teach. When I was done learning we were done."

That made a certain kind of weird sense; of other things, too.

"Is that what you are doing then, studying me?"

"And why are you in my bed?"

"Not sure. It's kind of a tossup between your good looks and your charming personality," she giggled at her own joke, but was not supported, "What? Not funny?"

"I've heard it before."

"I'm sorry, I'll try to be more original next time," she grinned, but the smile disappeared as the girl suddenly found herself feeling very uncomfortable. "So, was this really just homework for you? I mean... you didn't...like it?"

"I'm not capable of liking it."

"What do you mean? You seemed…up for it."

"It's the other component. The brain deals with pain by producing counteracting chemicals. The more pain is induced, the more pleasure, until both become overloaded and you feel neither."

"Right, the mummy serial killer guy," Dawn nodded, "So are you saying you haven't felt anything for eleven years?"

"I feel everything," the pauses between words have become more pronounced. Whatever it was Leshii was smoking was beginning to have an effect. "I know when I'm hungry, I know when I'm injured, and I know when I climax. I just have no preference for one over any other."

"Wow, he just messed you up in so many ways. Are you still looking for him? The way you've made such a big deal about me getting closure I'm guessing you never got yours."

Leshii shrugged.

"Looking for is a relative term. I had nothing to go on. He always wore a mask; I never saw his face or heard his voice. The other victims were washed clean and wrapped in sterile gauze bandages, untraceable. I wasn't even able to locate the basement where I was held; being unconscious on the way in and out I had no points of reference. There were two more bodies found dating after I was taken. That was ten years ago. It's possible he died or was arrested for a different crime. He may have moved out of Moscow. It's the constant construction that keeps disturbing his burial sites. He would have been better off elsewhere; practically every other Russian city is shrinking. Four years ago, Dr. Novikov has advised me to abandon my pursuit. He believed that instead of removing this man's power over me my actions were only increasing his influence. He was right."

"It's kind of funny the way you put so much stock into psychiatry. Do you really think it made you better?"

"Better at what?"

Dawn could only laugh

"You are right, it was a stupid question."

"You don't seem to think much of the discipline. Have you ever been to a therapist?"

"Not exactly. Since Buffy kind of frowns on keeping people chained up in a cellar to prevent them blabbing, the best she could scrounge up was Giles. It didn't go anywhere. Not that I wanted to."

"Let me guess," Leshii leaned back in his chair and took a few more puffs, "he tried to make you talk about your kidnapping, but you didn't want anyone to know what you did. He felt you were keeping something so he kept prying, but he was wasting his time. What happened that night was not all that important."

"Are you serious?" Dawn almost fell off the bed.

"It certainly triggered something in you; that I don't dispute, but it only served as a call to action. The direction of that action stems from a different experience. Tell me about your sister's death. You mentioned it was your fault."

She was asked this before. Buffy's death ranked second only to her relationships with Angel and Spike among the curious teenage slayers, first for Stefka. Knowing full well that one careless word and her non-human identify will be revealed Dawn has learned to easily deflect with a joke or two. This time, however, she felt compelled to answer.

"There was this hell god, Glorificus," she started out slowly, trying to censor every word. "She wanted to return to her world, but the ritual that would open the portal would temporarily merge all Demon worlds into this one. Blood was one of the ingredients in the spell. Once spilled the portal would open and stay open until all four pints drain into it. Glory kidnapped me for that role. Buffy and the others were able to kill her, but one of her minions cut me and the portal opened. I saw the world start to transform around me; I wanted to jump in, to stop it, but Buffy guessed that as sisters our blood is close enough and she jumped instead."

To Dawn's relief Leshii required no follow-up questions.

"Your guilt's misplaced," the Russian answered. "First rule of a rescue mission is to secure the hostage. Your sister botched the operation. Her demise was of her own making."

"She didn't botch anything!" Dawn snapped immediately, not caring for the absolution. "She beat a god into a bloody pulp for me! Everything was under control, that warlock just materialized out of nowhere; we didn't even know Doc worked for Glory."

"What makes you think he did?"

"The cutting, for one," Dawn answered on her sarcastic autopilot before the significance of the question started to sink in.

"Perhaps you are telling it wrong, but it makes no sense that an obviously powerful spell caster would allow his mistress to be beaten to a bloody pulp, as you put it, and instead open a portal she had no chance of going through"

Dawn could only blink in response as the manifesting epiphany congested every synapse in her brain.

"Seems to me you have means and ends switched," Leshii continued. "His goal was apparently to have the gate opened. When this Glory failed to do so he did it himself."

"'This will be interesting," the girl mumbled under her breath.

"Pardon?"

"That's what he said. When Spike tried to stop him he threw him off the tower like a rag doll, but when Buffy came up, after he cut me, he just let her push him off. 'This will be interesting' is all he said. My God! That's how it started! Buffy jumped off, so Willow brought her back, and as a price the First gained a foothold in this world. You are right! Doc only wanted us to think he was working for Glory, but he must have been really working for the First! "

"I wasn't there," Leshii shrugged, "I can only rely on your recollections, but I would not be surprised if it was true. I would not be surprised if the First's plotting went even further back."

"Or forward," Dawn jumped off the bed and paced around the room. "Did it ever stop? How do we know the conversation we are having isn't part of Its plan?"

"Perhaps it is."

"No, thinking like that gets you nowhere, but paranoid. Well, those of us who aren't there already. And the second hand...whatever it is, definitely isn't helping."

She was passing his chair for the seventh time when Leshii finally grabbed her wrist. It felt firm, but not painful.

"You should go back to your room," he said, "You won't be able to sleep here and there's work to be done tomorrow."

Dawn didn't argue. She mental and physical exhaustion was beginning to overcome her and she was shutting down. She silently gathered her clothes and walked out. Too many things have happened today; she could really use a tomorrow.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For the first ten minutes Dawn simply lay in her bed staring at the stone ceiling. She has found herself doing this almost every morning in the past few weeks: taking time to decide if the memories she had of the previous day were real or just another part of a just ended dream. Or, perhaps, a dream that hasn't ended at all. Going by the clock on her nightstand she slept for less than five hours, yet she felt surprisingly well rested. She wrapped herself in her robe, grabbed one of her smaller bags and filled it with clothes, towels, soap, and shampoo. Being fifty kilometers away from the nearest water main the castle had no indoor plumbing. The most basic needs of its denizens were met by a dozen Porta Potties scattered about the premises. The water came from large barrels positioned near the kitchen and living quarters. Everyone was provided with a little plastic tub they could fill and take to their room, sufficient for hand washing and occasional shaving. This morning Dawn needed more. The source of the water in the barrels was a well drilled in the dungeon area of the castle around the time of Charlemagne. Just a day before her arrival one of Leshii's men fitted it with a second pump and a gas water heater which allowed the water in the makeshift shower to go from freezing all the way up to lukewarm. It even had a curtain for privacy which she assumed was on her account. Having only a thin layer of darkened plastic in between her and anyone who might happen to wonder into the well area proved to be a good incentive not too linger. Besides, she still needed to blow-dry her hair and the nearest electrical outlet was in the computer area of the library.

Dawn dressed, packed her now wet towels back into her bag and headed out when a faint melody caught her attention. The last few notes of La Isla Bonita faded out and were replaced by piercing electronics of Tainted Love. Zemfira's Eighties' hits mix. Every second of every track of that CD has been seared into Dawn's memory from that faithful night in Rome. She stood still uncertain of what do; the pounding of her heart practically drowning out the melody. The music was coming from somewhere down the narrow cobblestone corridor. She followed the sound of Soft Cell to a narrow, but thick wooden door. The room with the well was underneath the castle courtyard area and lit by three openings in the ceiling. The area of the dungeon she was in now lacked any natural light. Two small torches at the bottom of the staircase allowed her to see her way down, but not much else. The minute long descent allowed her eyes to adjust and she was able to make out chains coming out of the walls and rising toward the ceiling. On autopilot her gaze followed the iron threads. She gasped and dropped her gym bag. Up above her three young women were strung up parallel to the ceiling. Slight tags on the chains indicated they were still alive.

"Abhorrent isn't it?" A voice exclaimed tersely from behind. Dawn turned to find Zemfira looking at her. In the vague torchlight her face looked sad, almost empathetic.

"That's kindness for you," the little vampire sighed, "Generosity, gratitude."

Dawn just stared trying hard to reconcile the scene with the words.

"The life of a shut-in is about reliance," Zemfira continued unfazed by the lack of a response, "Complete reliance for sustenance on people who couldn't tell you a pulmonary vein from a small intestine. I feared the worst: blood bank, or hell, even farm animals. When the boys brought me a live one I was so happy I let them play with my food. Now this is all they bring," she poked her finger at the ceiling. "Whore, whore; nothing but whores! Not that I have a problem with whores per se, but a proper diet is a balanced diet! I need something older, something younger. I am testosterone starved! Nobody wants to bring a boy here. We've got one closet case on the team, but instead of helping me out he's the first car to the train trying to prove something. What a disaster. That's why I was happy when I heard you were coming. We, girls, have to stick by each other. Go with them next time, bring us a boy. Any boy, your pick, I'm not feeling very particular right now. Please?"

Dawn opened her mouth to answer, but found no words. As grotesque as the display around her was, it was the look in the vampire's eyes that has horrified her so. Zemfira wasn't being snide: she really thought Dawn would help her; she thought her one of them. Overcome with panic she grabbed her bag off the floor and clutching it close to her chest ran up the stairs as fast as she could.

"If it's all the same to you, get one with dimples!" Zemfira yelled after her. She walked over to the wall and pulled a lever connected to a set of chains. One of the women dropped down to just four feet off the floor. Zemfira walked over slowly and cupped her face. "I like dimples," she growled sinking her fangs into the left cheek.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dawn burst into her room, panting. She dropped her bag on the bed and sat down next to it trying to figure out what to do. She had to do something and there really was only one way to go about it.

Leshii was just as she left him six hours ago, sitting in a chair, staring into nothingness. The pipe was gone, but the smell of opium still hung heavily in the air.

"Hey," she called out. "Good morning," she said a little louder after getting no response to her initial greeting.

"McClure is waiting for you at the library," Leshii answered without looking at her.

"I'll be there soon. Right now there's something I want to discuss. I've been do Zemfira's just now. Have you been down there lately?"

"No."

"I think you should. It's quite a scene"

"What is it I'm supposed to see?"

"I'd rather you took a look for yourself."

"I've been with Zemfira for eight years. She has long lost the capacity to shock me"

"You know exactly what's happening down there, don't you?"

"Nothing happens here without clearing it with me. My vampire needs food and my men need entertainment. What's your problem?"

"You mean besides women getting abused and murdered? There's plenty of livestock in the village and its blood is just as good, and your men can hire hookers like normal human beings. God knows you pay them enough!"

"That's a lot of emotion over a couple of anonymous prostitutes"

"If you are so fine with this how come you've never been there?"

"Not interested."

"Bullshit! You don't' want to see it. There's something about the visuals that sends you back, just like it did when you found me."

For the first time, a glimmer of interest shone in the green eye across from her.

"I empathized with you, is that what you think?"

"I don't know if empathy is the right word. You certainly identified with me, hence the big 'closure' speech. I don't remember much, being a little out of it, but it was pretty clear you really wanted that vicarious revenge. That's why you've never visited Zemfira's little pantry, don't want to go off on her and your minions."

"You are very observant, Dawn, and your logic is impeccable. However, you are quick to assume and as a result your conclusions suffer. That the similarities between my past and your present at the time we met have contributed to my actions is indisputable, but my motive had nothing to do with revenge or empathy, and consequently your current appeal to me is pointless."

"Is that so? Then what it was that you were doing?"

"Do you know what a scientific theory is?"

Dawn simply stared at Leshii, but as the pause grew she realized the question wasn't meant to be rhetorical.

"It's an explanation of a natural phenomenon verified through experiments."

"A theory is a predictive mechanism. The only reason we care why an apple fell on Newton's head is that the next time we sit under a tree it may fall on us. Experiments test the quality of a given predictive mechanism. Unfortunately not all predictions can be verified through experiments. We accept that the sun will go out in four billion years, but clearly the conclusion isn't based on anything done in a lab. We accept this notion because the same theory that predicts the fate of our sun is also used to make other predictions, ones that can be verified. As more and more of these are performed our confidence in the theory's predictive power grows and we come to accept its unverifiable portions. Psychology is an inexact science, but it also has theories and models. During our two year study Dr. Novikov has designed a number of such models. These models make some very disturbing predictions about my actions in certain circumstances. Needless to say I do not wish to conduct direct experiments in that area, but if I could verify or refute other predictions of that same model…"

"I was some kind of an experiment? Is that what you are saying?" Dawn's voice was shaking with outrage.

"You still are"

"I hear how you keep saying that you know you are crazy, but I don't think you understand how off the rocker you really are. You are trying to predict _your own_ actions. Think about it!"

"You are angry at what I did. Why? Anger is a type of disappointment, but I don't believe I have ever given you a reason to expect anything different from me."

"No, you didn't. My fault for being human, I guess. We tend to try to see good in other people."

"No," Leshii replied, "humans tend to see themselves in other people. You saw good in me because you are good."

"Coming from you that didn't sound like a compliment."

"It's a statement."

"Whatever," she was finally getting a handle on the rage inside her. "You want to play a human rock, fine by me, but kidnapping women, even if they are street walkers, may draw police attention here. It's a needless risk."

"It's a risk. As for needless, how many does Zemfira have now?"

"Three"

"Three is excessive. I will halt new acquisitions. What she has now should last at least two weeks. We can discuss this further then. Now go to McClure and do some work."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The library had a distinctly different look in the daytime. Located within a tower, it was lit by a dozen of long narrow windows lining the circumference of the dome. The desk Dawn sat at yesterday was apparently positioned right at the intersection of the slender beams coming from above. The bright reflection of the polished wood contrasted dramatically with the near darkness emanating from the book stands surrounding it.

"How decidedly medieval," Dawn thought moving to take a seat in the chair across from McClure. Martin looked quite engrossed in texts around him, periodically scribbling something in a small notebook.

"I must say I appreciate you eagerness to assist me," he greeted her with a smile as soon as she pulled out the chair. There was a slight intonation in his voice that made Dawn realize that in all the excitement around Zemfira and Leshii she has not only forgot to make up her face, but didn't even dry her hair. Her purse was with her and cosmetics deficiency could be easily rectified, but she certainly didn't pack a blow dryer. She sat down as straight as she could, pulling her shoulders back and adjusted her shirt. Anything to shake off that wet cat feeling that has come over her.

"Translation is the word of the day, or of the week, for that matter," Martin continued, "These are casts of various tablets we found," he said apparently referring to artifacts scattered about their table. "They are unlike any language I've seen, although it appears the Watcher Council had some knowledge of it. One of the oldest manuscripts they had refers to a 'tongue of people cursed', the use of which has apparently been purposely abandoned. I've had limited success in reconstructing the grammar. Perhaps you may be able to spot a pattern or two that has eluded me. If you please"

Dawn glanced about the table as he spoke. Every word on these tablets was clear as day to her. Virtually all of them were abstract warning of pride and overconfidence, intermixed with references to names she never heard of. In short: nothing useful.

"Is this all you have?" she asked pretending to give one of the artifacts a thorough examination.

"We have thousands, and as soon as we piece together enough of the language I'm sure they will a prove a fascinating read"

"The more we have in front of us the better the chance of spotting a pattern, don't you think?"

Martin stopped scribbling and looked at Dawn. The smile on his face was now unquestionably fake.

"The tablets available to you are representative of our collection, which Zemfira has kindly miniaturized for transportation and storage. I do not intend to trouble her without a good reason. If you find one of these to be particularly informative I'll be more than happy to attempt to retrieve additional similar items."

'Good reason' - check. Martin may be telling the truth about most of the inventory getting shrunk, but he's probably lying about the ones on the table being the only items available. He'll likely try to use her insights to translate the tablets he thinks most valuable and take the credit for the work. Who cares about the credit? All she wants is information. She wished she could just tell him that they can work to each others advantage, but it's much too early. He doesn't trust her; he'll sell her out to Leshii in a heartbeat.

"Sure, makes perfect sense," she nodded in an overt show of agreement, "One other thing I wanted to talk to you about. During your spying days at the Council, how much of the documents were you able to copy?"

"We have a duplicate of everything that was ever in digital form as well as good percentage of the paper only items. Are you looking for something in particular?"

"A few things; if you could just point me to the server where you keep the data."

"I'm afraid I cannot do that. According to Leshii your clearance is on the need to know basis. Tell me what you are looking for and I'll decide if you need to know."

A natural reaction of a person with something to hide would be to either say as little as possible or make up a reason entirely opposite to the actual one. The mark of good liar, however, is to inject as much truth as possible into an all encompassing answer so as to nip any follow up questions in the bud.

"There was this hell god called Glorificus that Buffy killed two years ago. She had a powerful artifact, referred to as the Key that she wanted to use for dimensional travel. Our sources indicated that it may have other uses, but were short on details. In its raw form the Key is a green colored energy. I figure energy, green, radiation, the First: worth a shot. The Council was doing research on Buffy's behalf, but with Glory dead before it was finished they never sent it over. There might be something useful there"

"Indeed," the ex-Watcher put down a line in his notebook. "I'll see what I can find."

Martin was well versed in the Council's affairs and the Glory episode was a pivotal point in partially healing the rift between Buffy and the Watchers. He could not have been ignorant about it. She wouldn't put it passed him to have even seen the files she was looking for. Her story was beyond reproach, bought line, hook, and sinker. Finally something is going right for her today. As the Englishman returned to his books Dawn fished a hair clip out of her purse and wrapped the semi-dry strands up in a bun.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The day was winding to a close and Dawn found herself back in her room thoroughly exhausted. Eight hours of pretending to work was so much more tiring than actually doing it. Her room wasn't exactly palatial, but it was a significant improvement over the "sewer motel" in Kiev or the backseat of the jeep. Except for a single large window, the stone walls, floors, and ceiling were completely draped over with plastic. The covering provided a nice respite from the draft of the hallways that weren't similarly equipped, but its main purpose was to provide for a quick cleanup should Leshii choose to abandon the castle. All rooms picked as living quarters were in the inner part of the castle, facing the courtyard. Out of sight of passerby's there was no need for the tarp covering and the open windows provided the residents with much needed fresh air. At one end of Dawn's room was a decent full sized bed with two wooden nightstands with shaded lamps on top. The opposing wall had a coat rack in one corner and a four foot high dresser in the other. The latter, together with a fold out chair and a little imagination could also serve as a desk. The girl sat herself at the makeshift workplace and laid out the books she grabbed at the library. Two texts on Egyptian hieroglyphs, two covering Sumerian and Babylonian cuneiform, a book on Phoenician and Hebrew origins, and a couple of studies on Sanskrit and ancient Chinese. On top of everything she put the copy of the two tablets she and Martin discussed that afternoon. Although she already knew exactly what was written on them she could not say anything without revealing her ability, something she was sure was not a good idea. At least not until she figures out its source and extent. That meant she had to work backwards from the answer to come up with some kind of technique that could explain her results. She has done it before. Ever since the second grade she would write down correct answers to her math test in the less than fifteen minutes only to be told to "show her work". As though the fact no one else in class was even half way done wasn't proof enough she didn't copy her answers. Ridiculous. No, she is the one who is ridiculous for still being upset at something that never happened. There was no second grade, not for her. Did it happen to someone else? Were her memories random or based on a real person? A mixture of childhood memories of the monks themselves, perhaps? She paused her studies and pushed her chair back. There were two bottles of Armenian brandy stashed in the bottom drawer on the left. The gang used her room as a liquor storage before she arrived and she snagged a few bottles as they moved out the crates. She wasn't sure if it was on purpose or one of her rare klepto relapses, but the brandy was here so it might as well make itself useful. She grabbed a glass off her nightstand and filled it up a third of the way, smiling once again at the Russian translation on the other side of the label: Armenian Cognac. Apparently trademark protection doesn't extend to Cyrillic. She let it breathe for a minute then tasted it cautiously. Sweet and thick, not for shooting, but definitely a better sipping drink than vodka. Armed with a suitable brain lubricant Dawn flipped open both Sumerian and Sanskrit texts in one confident motion. She hasn't been to school in months and her inner nerd was starved for some serious studying. When she finally lifted her eyes to see Leshii standing in her doorway almost four hours passed and her twice refilled glass was empty once again.

"What is it?" she inquired of her visitor

"It's midnight. Do you plan to stay here?"

Dawn put down her pen and leaned back in her chair.

"Are you serious?" she grimaced in disbelief. "Do you actually expect me to sleep with you tonight after what you said?"

"Do you expect not to?"

The smile has disappeared from the girls face. She stood up trying to strike a confident pose, but her heart fell into her stomach.

"Is that it now?" the pitch of her voice fell as her jaw clenched, "Is tonight the night you try the other experience?"

"No, " Leshii answered as emotionless as ever, "There would be no point. You've already been raped."

He made no move as she rushed him, not even to brace himself. She pushed him with all her strength and he fell down, his back hit the wall of the corridor, the cane fell out of his hand.

"I'm not your toy!" she screamed, angry tears raining down her cheeks. She stood over him shaking with fury, yet completely disoriented. Leshii just sat on the stone floor, watching her, without moving, without saying a word. Eventually he reached for his cane and standing it on its end slowly pulled himself up.

"We are all somebody's toys," he said and limped away. Dawn shuffled back into her room letting inertia gently close the door behind her.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She didn't want him to see her walk in. Once inside, she would feel fine, but there was something about the entrance that was so humiliating. Dawn carefully turned the handle, but opening the door slowly only made hinges screech louder. Giving up, she simply swung it open. Leshii stood facing the window making no acknowledgment of her presence. Dawn closed the door behind her and sat on the bed. It took her a few minutes to collect herself enough to speak, except Leshii spoke first.

"Why are you here?"

"You were right," she replied quietly but steadily; her answer well rehearsed, "I have no other move."

"To do what?" he has limped to her side now and gripping her by the shoulders lifted her up to her feet. "Why are you here?" Leshii repeated making Dawn realize he was asking something completely different. The questions filling up her mind seemed to be reflected in the green eye staring into her.

"I think there's something you are supposed to tell me," she whispered.

"What?"

"I don't know"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Outside it was a cloudless night, the moonlight unusually strong for a crescent. Dawn lay on her stomach, her hands folded beneath her head providing some cushion to the barren mattress. She's definitely bringing a pillow with her next time. Some blankets, too. The mundane simplicity of these thoughts made her smile. That anger and confusion that was crushing her innards just half an hour ago was flushed away leaving her feeling light, clean, and confident. She looked over at her partner. Just like the night before Leshii has relocated to his desk chair, pipe in hand. The moonlight bounced undiminished from Leshii's alabaster skin; in some cases even more so than could be justified even by twenty five tan-less years. She has felt these lines coming down around his neck under her finger tips, but Leshii torso being a virtual cornucopia of burns and slash scar tissue she didn't pay match attention.

"Is the second hand opium finally getting to me, or do you really have metal in your chest?"

"It's a cross pendant, " Leshii answered exhaling a small whitish cloud, "A while back there was a gas explosion in one of the tunnels we occupied. Probably the closest anyone has gotten to killing me. Zemfira's force fields blocked much of the heat, but enough got through for the metal to burn into my skin which then scarred over."

"And you just left it in there?"

"It's quality Russian silver, " Leshii shrugged, "It's not supposed to oxidize. Besides, there's certain symbolism to it."

"And I thought Stefka was the Jesus enthusiast in the family"

"The cross has nothing to do with Christ. Well, not first hand anyway," Leshii continued to expound. "It belonged to the gang's founder, the Grave. He had the leanings of an aspiring cult leader. He would swear on this cross in his speeches; use it to bless us upon our assignments. When Jap killed him he said taking the pendant would give him just a little more legitimacy, contribute to a smoother transition. He turned out to be right, so when the time came I took it from him."

Had it not been firmly attached to her scull Dawn's jaw would have certainly crashed through the mattress and onto the floor where it belonged in light of the revelation.

"Jap was the head of the gang? How's that possible?"

"There were four of us, the co-conspirators. Jap was the oldest and most experienced. He was the logical choice to lead."

"That's so not the point. Why is he still alive?"

"He gave it up willingly. It was a smart move on his part. He screwed up. A third of the gang got killed including Yozh's best friend. If I didn't have the power to protect him the men would have torn him to pieces."

"Again, not the point! He was the leader once; he must want to be one again. You would kill some guy's kids so they don't grow up to take revenge, but you entrust pretty much the entire operation to your main rival? How does that make any sense? Please don't tell me you think he's so grateful you saved his life, that his loyalty is beyond reproach!"

"You've picked an odd topic to get so excited about, " Leshii calmly exhaled another opium cloud. "Of course he wants to take over. That's exactly why I kept him."

If she didn't know better she would think he was messing with her, but having already thrown out no less than three exasperated questions she chose to remain silent at the latest provocation.

"When picking second in command, " Leshii continued after a slight pause, "one is faced with two choices. Elevate someone who is capable of replacing you temporarily and eventually he'll want to replace you permanently. Pick someone not capable and suffer the consequences. Personally I prefer duplicity over incompetence; it's much more predictable. Jap is a very cautious and patient man. He will not move against me until he's certain of success."

"If he's half as capable as you he can kill you anytime he wants to with the kind of access he has!"

"Revenge is not his motive, it's succession. Killing me prematurely is suicide. He needs to be able to compensate the men for their loss."

"Wow, someone is certainly full of him.., " she stopped mid-sarcasm as the epiphany hit her. "The payroll, you have eighty percent of everybody's money! You sell it as retention policy, but what it retains is your ass intact. He can make it look like an accident, though."

"Then he has no claim on leadership."

"Of course he does, he's your second in command," Dawn countered

"He's a person I rely on the most, but there is no official hierarchy. A temporary commander is appointed for each mission, but outside of it everyone is equal. In theory. Naturally, a certain dynamic develops; leaders emerge based on mission performance, seniority. There are a number of men with the following equal to Jap. Some with their own ambitions, some, like Yozh, who just hate his guts. To elevate himself Jap needs to kill me and have a good reason to do it; a major benefit to the gang."

"I get it now, " Dawn clapped her hands in uncontainable excitement. "You spend way too much resources fighting the First, perhaps some even started to grumble, so you take that dog of a job in Kiev personally to show that you are still interested in making money for the gang. Jap realized you are making a point so he flies down personally to assure you of his loyalty least you suspect him of planning to take advantage of the situation. I love intrigue! And they say Louis XIV court was vicious! Hold on," she grimaced pensively, "What if you really do get hit by a bus? Without a clear successor the infighting will destroy the gang."

"Perhaps," Leshii shrugged, "It doesn't matter to me. The reason I took the reigns from Jap was because I wanted the money and manpower available to help and protect my sister. Without me it cannot be used for this purpose, hence its fate is irrelevant."

"What if you found someone smart and capable who'd be happy to pick up where you left of? What?" the look in his eye was very telling, "Totally hypothetical!"

"I think the second hand opium is finally getting to you," he quoted Dawn back with decidedly lower ph in his tone, "You should go back to your bedroom"

"You are not throwing me out! I come when I want to and I leave when I want to!" she snapped, but there was no answer to her challenge. Leshii simply leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed to some spot in the left corner of the ceiling. As far as he was concerned the conversation was over. Whatever. Dawn demonstratively rolled onto her back and closed her eyes as if planning to sleep the night. She lay still for a couple of minutes until the awkwardness of her sleeping position became intolerable. She grabbed the bathrobe off the floor and after a momentary hesitation decided it would better serve as a blanket than a pillow. She turned on her side with her back to Leshii, and putting her hands under her cheek tried falling asleep once more. After fifteen minutes of rolling from side to side she finally gave up and returned to her back this time with her eyes open. She lay awhile like that periodically glancing over at Leshii. He just sat there offering no reaction to her presence, even as Dawn started humming her way through the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack.

"Fine!" she finally threw up her hands and got off the bed, "you've bored me into submission." She jammed her arms through the bathrobe sleeves, knotting the band a little too tight and marched out the door.

"Have a good night," she heard after her. Dawn smiled and walked on without a reply

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was gorgeous spring weather, sunny, but with a slight breeze to cool off the afternoon sun. Shielded from all four sides the garden in the middle of the Roman headquarters would heat up quite a bit in the summer, but today, at 4:13 in the evening local time, it was perfect; as were the freshly baked scones. Realizing Alice has refilled his tea cup Giles immediately set aside his papers.

"I should tell you, Alice, it is a great comfort to know that there will be at least one person in this coffee drinking purgatory who knows how to make a cup of real tea."

"For my part, I happy to have at least one person who can tell the difference"

Giles chuckled taking a sip of his cup.

"I've read the summary of your mission a few days ago, but from the full report it seems even more remarkable."

"Absolutely," the girl continued in the same deadpan tone. "Stefka saving the day from the Bringers. Buffy saving Stefka. Willow saving them both along with the rest. I so happy to have been taken along and shown all of that"

The Watcher had another good chuckle.

"It is certainly one way of looking at it. Another way would be that while Stefka was displaying her individual heroics you took charge of the entire squad and successfully completed the task at hand. Wasn't that your personal goal, to show Buffy your leadership abilities?"

"Not that she noticed"

"She noticed," the Englishman nodded assuredly, "Buffy notices a lot more than you realize. She just doesn't say very much. To be more precise, she can converse endlessly on every inane topic you can fathom, but never about anything of consequence. Do not be surprised if one day she just hands you command with barely two sentence worth of explanation."

Alice brought the saucer with the cup to her face in the most proper fashion and took a thoughtful sip.

"So she was always like this? I thought you get that way with age. Dawn is a talker. Was a talker. She hasn't said much of anything since the kidnapping. How is she, by the way? Do we know?"

"She is fine. She writes Buffy on regular basis"

"Is she coming back?"

"Without a doubt," Giles stated most unequivocally. With her back to the courtyard entrance Alice didn't see Buffy walk in.

The Slayer looked over the scene with a smile and just couldn't help herself.

"Happy un-birthday to you! Happy un-birthday to you!" she crooned giddily, "What?" she giggled at the blank stares, "Alice, tea party, happy un-birthday!" But the stares persisted. "You're kidding! 'Alice in Wonderland'? It's a quintessential British book; don't tell me you haven't read it!"

"Have you?" asked Giles in a dry, yet friendly tone

The smile left Buffy's face as she plunked herself in the free chair. "There's no un-birthday in the book, is there?"

Alice shook her head.

"No song?"

Alice shook her head again.

"Well, this is embarrassing"

This time Alice nodded.

"For the record, Disney's 'Alice in Wonderland' is a classic work of animation and the fact that neither of you saw it is just as embarrassing. That's right!"

"I'll go wallow in shame in my room then," the British girl got up from the table trying her best to maintain a straight face.

"Well that certainly raised her level of respect for me," Buffy sighed as Alice disappeared inside the compound."

"She has plenty of respect for you, Buffy," Giles answered, "And to be perfectly truthful, there's 'un-birthday' in Through the Looking Glass"

"I knew it was in the book!" she exclaimed thrusting her finger forward victoriously.

"A different book"

"A book about Alice! They even publish them together! You've totally left me out to dry on this one so you better have something good to make up for that."

"Necromancers"

"Yes, with a capital 'N'. Because they are really, really into it"

"In a manner of speaking. The word today is used to signify any witch or warlock dabbling in death magics, but Necromancery started out as a religion, one of the most ancient on record. Its disciples believe that sentient life in its current form is a perversion of the Creator's intent and should be destroyed. Needless to say this view didn't bring them many allies and although extremely powerful, the sect was supposedly hunted to extinction. Supposedly"

"So is that why they dress as priests, a disguise?"

"I don't believe so. Necromancers hold life to be an abomination so they do not procreate. New members are recruited. Apocalyptic religions such as Christianity or Islam must provide fertile grounds for their efforts. From 'some will be saved' to 'none will be saved' isn't that big a leap. Those susceptible would likely already be among the most ardent followers of their original faith, namely clerics or sect leaders."

"So they are actual priests? Wow, I'd hate to be in that congregation," Buffy smirked, "'You are all going to hell!'" she pronounced dramatically in a deep stern tone. "'So what should we do?' 'Nothing' 'What if we...' 'Won't make any difference' ''But what about…' 'No, hell' 'But can't we...' 'Hell!'"

"This isn't a laughing matter, Buffy"

"Come on, Giles, it's our umpteenth apocalypse; I'm allowed to have a sense of humor about it"

"If I'm correct, and Necromancers have been working with the First from the beginning, then the vampire invasion we stopped in Sunnydale was indeed a rouse. A demon dominated world is no more acceptable to them than a human one. The scale and the intricacy of that deception make me concerned the First's current lack of initiative is another part of a grander play."

"Alright, let's assume the worst; let's say all of it is true. So what? We have captured a piece of whatever the First is looking for and Willow is in Seoul researching it as we speak. Kim is all over the other digs looking for clues to other parts, while Parreli is very close to finding the exact formula for dematerializing the First and has started to gather ingredients. What else do you propose we do?"

"I don't know"

"And if you think of something I'll be happy to hear it. I'm all over this. Just because I don't walk around with a look of perpetual constipation on my face doesn't mean I don't take things seriously."

"What exactly are you insinuating?"

"Nothing whatsoever, " Buffy smiled and nudged the pastry basket towards Giles, "Bran muffin?" She smiled wider at the Watchers mockingly cross look and leaned back into her chair taking in that sublime spring breeze.

"So if Necromancers hate demons, what are Bringers exactly?" she mused after a few minute pause.

"A breed of animated corpses"

"Zombies?"

"More or less. They are self-sufficient, but lack any will of their own. Their collective consciousness does not appear to be consciousness at all, but rather a psychic network their masters use to control them."

"Can we mess with it? Take it over, or tap for surveillance? Imagine having, well not eyes, but at least ears wherever the First goes. I should tell Willow, she'll love the idea."

"I don't think it would be wise, Buffy. The First is undoubtedly tapped into it already and Willow is in no condition to take it on," said Giles placing a folder in front of Slayer.

"What is this?"

"Willow's medical file"

"I don't think I should be reading this," she said apprehensively pushing the papers away.

"And I think you should"

The resolute tone of Giles' voice left no room for debate. Buffy picked up the folder and flipped through the charts until the moisture welling up in her eyes rendered the writing too blurry to decipher.

"She lied to me," her voice was shaking with anger and hurt.

"I expected her to. That is why I wanted to see the test results myself. How do you want to handle this?"

"Head on. She'll be back in a few days. Will you stick around?"

"If you think I can help."

"I do"

"Then I will"

Buffy stared at the pages for another moment then slammed the folder on the table spilling the contents of Alice's abandoned tea cup. The law of probability states that over time things have to even out.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dawn dumped the banknote bundles on the bed and simply stared. The Summers' were never well off. In fact, they turned positively destitute after their mom died and Buffy's just-north-of-minimum wage salary had to be regularly supplemented by a check from either Giles or Xander. Then came the day the Home Office gave the newly formed Slayer Council its first five million dollar installment and Buffy got her black American Express card. Dawn didn't actually remember that day. It was a complete blur with occasional flashes of clothing racks and salesmen smiles. The next morning, however, was still very vivid in her mind. She came out of her bedroom to find Buffy staring wild eyed at a massive wall of bulging boutique bags surrounding towers of shoe boxes that reached all the way to the ceiling. "It's just wrong, so wrong," she kept repeating. They brought everything back. Almost everything. That one day brain freeze aside, Buffy made it a point to maintain a relatively frugal lifestyle. Their apartment was the only thing that could have been considered luxurious, but the sky high rent was more a function of its location than square footage. Now Dawn had eight thousand dollars in cash lying in front of her, her share for the Chechen campaign, or, rather, twenty percent of it. The five year deferred pay rule applied to her same as the rest of the gang. That meant another thirty two thousand of her money was accumulating interest somewhere out there; which might as well be nowhere since she isn't planning to stick around for five years. The eight grand are right here, though. Now what?

"Gold"

The unexpected voice made Dawn jump off the bed.

"Gold," Anya repeated calmly. She looked different now. Her hair was straight with a touch of black lowlights. She had on a dark green skirt of medium length and a matching short jacket on top of a light beige blouse. "I know what you are thinking: gold has been one of the worst investment vehicles in the last twenty years. However, given the requirements of your current situation I think it's ideally suited," she spoke in a tone as smart as her dress. "Gold, and here I'm referring to gold bullion rather than futures, is portable, untraceable, and universally accepted. You are not planning on paying a gun dealer with shares of Merck, are you now? Additionally, if you look at a two to five year horizon, then given the ever increasing US budget deficit and the inflationary policy pursued by the Federal Reserve, gold is almost guaranteed to outperform cash, and possibly, even stocks."

"You've got to be kidding me," was all that Dawn could bring herself to say.

"Why? That can't be a surprise for you; you wrote a midterm paper on Federal Reserve just this past November."

"That's not what I mean."

"Oh," Anya soured somewhat. "I can feel another one of those stupid 'First' arguments coming up. I'm not doing it. I said what you needed to hear and now I'm leaving."

"Please," said Dawn.

Anya shrugged and disappeared. What, the hell, is It trying to do? Zemfira's spell was supposed to prevent the First from showing up. As silly as it played out she had to report it. Dawn walked out of the room, then quickly returned. She picked up all eight money packs off the bed and put them in the night stand drawer. She does live in castle full of professional criminals, after all.

It was two in the morning, but the mess hall still had plenty of patrons. Leshii's men were split into three shifts. Eight hours on patrol, eight hours of rest, and eight hours drinking and playing cards. The latter wasn't mandated, but observed religiously. There was a poker game going in the corner and Bones waved at the girl.

"Deal you in?"

Relations between her and the gang have gone a lot smoother lately. Dawn no longer felt the incessant urge to flaunt her special status and has made a deliberate attempt to be pleasant to the men, both in conversation and cards. Regular lunch and after school games made her an excellent poker player and she could have easily turned the hundred and eighty six dollars of Buffy's leftover travel allowance into a couple grand. Instead she made sure to alternate her winning and loosing nights. All for good reason. Leshii would disappear for days and even when around tended to vex philosophically at every one of her questions. Dawn needed details, hard facts, and these were plentiful at the game table. Strewn among jokes and rips there was information; sometimes full stories, sometimes only a phrase or two. She would never ask a direct question, relying on casual, offhand remarks to try to steer the conversation in a desired direction. Hour after hour, night after night, she was able to piece together a great deal of Leshii's operation: clients, past and present, suppliers, hideouts. For their part, the gangsters seemed to enjoy the presence of a woman they couldn't just bend over a table, if only as a change of pace.

"Not tonight, " Dawn declined the invitation with a smile, "Got to speak with the boss."

Leshii and Zemfira were sitting at a table at the other end of the room, while Yozh was scavenging the two empty tables in the middle for food and non-empty bottles.

"Alright!" he shouted excitedly as soon as he noticed her. "We got ammunition and re-enforcements now," he waved at her with three quarter filled bottles in his hand.

"Huh?"

"We need a third, " Zemfira translated, "Martin passed out half an hour ago."

"I didn't come to drink," she tried objecting, but was curtly shoved into a chair by Yozh. "The First was in my room, just now."

Leshii glanced at Zemfira. The witch simply shook her head.

"What did It want?" Yozh asked filling up her glass.

"It said I should use the money you gave me to buy gold."

"The First showed up to provide you with financial advice," said Leshii. The statement lacked any intonation whatsoever, but Dawn knew him well enough to realize that he was making fun of her.

"I know how it sounds, but it happened. It showed up as Anya and told me put the money into gold bullion. It gave a pretty solid argument."

"Who is Anya?" asked Leshii.

"Anyanka," Zemfira responded as she collected the shrimp from the plates Yozh just brought over.

"That's right, the money obsessed Vengeance Demon."

"Ex-Vengeance Demon," corrected Dawn.

"Ex-ex-Vengeance Demon," Zemfira corrected her.

"Wouldn't that make her a Vengeance Demon again?" Leshii remarked.

"No, the other 'ex' is for 'expired'," Zemfira giggled.

"Can we take this a little more seriously, please?" Dawn looked at Leshii for some support.

"What do you think, Yozh? Another initiation prank?" asked Zemfira dunking her shrimp into something red. Could be blood, could be cocktail sauce.

"I'll find out in the morning, " the fat man responded plunking himself back in his seat and filling up his glass. "When Rooster joined, someone mixed LSD into his drink, " Yozh explained to the staring girl. "He spent the next three hours talking to a chair."

"I'm not high!" Dawn exclaimed exasperated.

"No, but the ability to get past Zemfira's spell unnoticed is much too great an advantage to be revealed in such a useless manner," Leshii mused. "If it was the First, then It likely is able to get through at random or under circumstances beyond Its control, which may point to a weaknesses in the spell..."

"The spell is fine, " the witch cut him off abruptly.

"The spell _was_ fine. When you sober up you will check the entire castle for any possible sign of the First's recent presence. I want you to start using that second protection spell you've been working on while you check this one."

"There are no..," Zemfira began, "Fine," she grumbled.

"Why are we talking about this shit when there's food and drink on the table?" Yozh grabbed a platter of caviar and dumped a pile on his plate then divided the rest between Dawn and Zemfira.

"You missed one, " Dawn pointed to Leshii.

"I'm not wasting caviar on someone who can't tell it from a pile of horse feed, " Yozh bristled.

"Just because he doesn't like one better than the other doesn't mean he can't tell the difference, " she countered.

"No, " Leshii replied for his man, "I can't. My taste buds were burned off with acid."

"Why?" Dawn exclaimed and immediately realized how idiotic that question was, but the answer came nevertheless.

"There isn't much you can do with a tongue," Zemfira started slowly, a slight, malevolent smile playing on her lips. "I suppose he could have cut it up like he did his face. Except tongue is what turns that guttural noise into a scream. And it's no fun if they don't scream," she cackled.

Dawn looked over at Leshii almost wishing he would reach across the table and rip the tongue out of the vampire's mouth. How could he let her make fun of the most horrific moments of his life? She downed a shot and looked over at him again. Whether he was actually bereft of emotion or simply hiding behind the inexpressive mask and giant sunglasses Leshii continued to steadily spoon the oatmeal in front of him.

"Alright!" Yozh suddenly exclaimed, slamming a now empty bottle on the table, "What are we drinking to now? We've covered women, health, good times, and Russia making it into 2006 World Cup. Any other ideas?"

"How about victory?" Dawn suggested without much enthusiasm twirling her shot glass. It was getting to be really late.

"Works for me," Yozh nodded lifting up the last bottle into the air having long passed the need to use a glass. "Screw that fucking chink!"

"What?"

"The First. We are drinking to kicking Its ass, aren't we?"

Zemfira and Dawn both stared at the fat man.

"Why is the First is Chinese?"

"You said It was."

The girls glanced quizzically at each other.

"I don't think so."

"You said It gets the memories of all these dead people, right? Well, that makes It more Chinese than anything else."

Dawn could only blink in response.

"That's right, baby. You've got nothing. It's fucking math. A fucking fact. Everything I say is a fucking fact. Only this time you can't say this fact is fucked because I'm some fucked up skinhead. Can't blame it on me. You can only blame math. Or blame the fags who invented it."

Dawn just kept staring at the gangster unable to speak until the sound of Zemfira falling off her chair in fit of hysterical laughter brought her out of her trance.

"What fags?"

"The fags. You know," the fat man waved the bottle in the air in an attempt to gather together whatever sober cells were left in his brain, "Archimedes… Socrates…Zeus"

"I say we blame Zeus!" Zemfira yelled from under the table.

"And on this pleasant note I'm going to say 'goodnight'," Dawn stood up and looked over to Leshii for a clue as to which room she should be heading. There was none. He seemed completely oblivious to the circus that was taking place around him the last five minutes. Fine by her, she had no energy anyway.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

With Dawn gone, the party started to wind down. Zemfira pulled her shrimp and sauce down to her new place under the table while Yozh was staring longingly at the bottle with the last fifty grams of vodka left in the mess hall.

"I feel I can drink more, " he spoke to no one in particular, "But if I send someone to the cellar for a new bottle, I'd have to drink at least half, or I'd be a total asshole. I don't think I can drink half. Then again everyone already thinks I'm an asshole..."

A strange noise from under the table interrupted his soliloquy.

"Relax, Zem, I won't bother you."

"No," Leshii spoke for the first time in half an hour. "I believe one of her alarms was triggered."

"A Slayer came up from the forest, she's coming up on the south side of the building," the witch whispered from underneath.

Yozh looked at Leshii then whipped out his walkie-talkie. "Yo, Tick, anything suspicious out there? Tick? Fuck!" he jumped to his feet and grabbed a shotgun from a holster in the chair. "Well, she might be in, but she isn't getting out".

"No," said Leshii taking out his cell phone, "Leave her"

"Is she who you've been waiting for?" asked Zemfira peeking from under the tablecloth.

"Yes, she's right on time," he replied pressing the send button.

"You know, just because you don't sleep doesn't mean others can't" said the drowsy voice on the other end.

"You have a visitor"

Dawn quickly hung up the phone and sat up on the bed glancing around the room. The moon was gone and the only light coming in was from the few windows downstairs reflected back towards the building by the leaves in the grove. A soft breeze coming from the window brushed softly against her cheek. It is at that moment Dawn realized that the window was closed when she went to sleep. She lunged across the bed and grabbed the revolver on the nightstand.

"Easy there, Thelma" said a silhouette by the window.

"Faith?"

"One and only," the slayer began walking towards the bed, but was halted by the click of removed safety. "Well, that's not the welcome I was hoping for"

"Leshii knows you're here. I don't know why he hasn't killed you, but I suggest you leave before he changes his mind."

"Leshii isn't the one pointing a gun at my head"

Dawn sat back, resting her body against the headboard and pulled a pillow under the elbow of her right hand. The gun was still pointing squarely between Faith's eyes.

"You are not taking me"

"Didn't even cross my mind"

"You are such a liar. That's all you have on your mind. The big hero moment. Bringing back the precautions little sister. Buffy so happy, so grateful. Finally, you are even. Not going to happen, Faith."

"Clearly"

"This is not about the gun. You can never be even. Do you want to know why?"

"Please."

"It's the motive. Doesn't matter what you did to her and what she did for you, it's why. All the kindness she showed you, all the forgiveness, all the second chances she gave you, she did it just because. What you do now, you do out of guilt. As long as you think you owe her, nothing will ever feel enough. The big hero moment won't last you an hour. You think you've been on this great journey of redemption and self discovery, but you haven't gone anywhere. First it was 'Buffy's so great; everybody loves her; I just want her dead!', now it's 'Buffy's so great; everybody loves her; I just want her to love me, too!' Nothing has changed. You're still the same clueless, directionless trailer trash you've always been. It just comes out differently now, that's all."

"Wow. From a picture of support to channeling the First. I almost took it personally for second, but it was never about me. There's only thing a girl can get so bipolar about, a mirror."

"Was that supposed to be some brilliant insight? I'm the younger sister of the Slayer. It would be a miracle if I didn't have an all consuming guilt slash inferiority complex. My problem with you isn't the similarities, it's the differences. You chose this. You are choosing it all over again every day. Forget about it, she has! Move on already!"

"Why don't you move on?"

"I can't. I get how it started: you were the only two Slayers in the world. The world's changed. Your club isn't as exclusive as it used to be. Not for me. Willow isn't making any more sisters. Buffy and I are bound by blood. 'Blood flows the gates will open. The gates will close when it flows no more.'"

"Poetic"

"Just some requisite nightly reading from two years ago"

"Must've made for some pleasant dreams"

"Actually, once I would finally cry myself to sleep, they weren't half bad."

"And how are you sleeping these days? The corpses, do they chase you or just stand around whispering?" Faith smiled at Dawn's silent stare. "Mirror, remember? Wasn't hard to figure out what you did. Does Buffy know?" The wind chased the clouds passed the moon, lighting the plastic flattering about in the breeze of the open window. Faith was finally able to make out the girl's somber face across.

"I had nightmares," Dawn answered. "Actually, the same one, over and over. Then, my last night in Moscow I had a very different one. I saw Buffy. She was all wavy, like there was water between us. There's a rope in my hand. The other end is in hers. I have to pull her out, so I'm pulling. I'm pulling with all my strength, but she isn't budging. Suddenly I notice a boy. A skinny twelve year old kid with green eyes watching me struggle. He looks curious. 'You're doing it wrong,' he says, 'She's going to drown'. 'Help her!' I cry. The boy nods, walks over to me and puts his hand over my mouth. He's very strong, he pushes me down, sits on my chest. It's Leshii, he's staring at me with empty eye sockets. The leather glove is over my face, pinning me to the ground, strangling me. I can't move, but with what strength I have left I'm still holding on to the rope. I don't see it, but I feel he is stabbing me with a knife in his other hand over and over. There's blood everywhere, but it floats up, coloring the space around me. It's at that moment I realize that it's me, I'm the one under water. As I die I let go the rope. It floats up with the blood. The last thing I see is Buffy's tear stained face looking down on me from the shore," she paused trying to gauge Faith's reaction, "Haven't had a nightmare since."

"Vivid," the slayer nodded, "Is that why you decided to leave with Leshii?"

"No, I think it's the opposite."

"Prophetic dreams are for Slayers, Dawn"

"Siblings have been known to share."

"Twins. You are not"

"A six year younger twin. That would be something, wouldn't it?"

"I'd hate to be in that labor," Faith laugh was just a bit forced as if trying to compensate for the teenager's strange tone in setting up the joke. "Seriously, there's nothing prophetic about this dream of yours. You think you are dead weight. You hate that. You hate yourself, so you are killing yourself. Now you are here, the new you; playing on the wrong side of the track, finding your power. I've been down this road, Dawn, it doesn't lead anywhere."

"All roads lead somewhere."

"Not the ring roads. Trust me; Moscow's got three of them. Don't get me wrong, the trip to the dark side isn't all bad. There are times it even feels really good. There's one thing though. No matter how much I believed it was worth it, how much I liked it, how much I felt that I was given no other choice, there was a part of me that wished I was. I know you feel it, too, and just like I did you want to pretend you don't have that choice. Only there's always a choice, and that part of you that wants it will only grow stronger and gnaw at you and maul you until your mind bleeds out. Whatever it is you are trying to get out of this you won't reach it. This road will lead you in circles until you have nothing inside you, but despair."

"I appreciate you trying to share the wisdom of your experience, but unlike you, I know what I'm doing."

"You are right," Faith smiled, "I still don't. I suck at being a white hat even more than being a villain. You might argue I've accomplished absolutely nothing by coming here while you are apparently well underway to completing whatever it is you are after. Which begs the question; how come you are the one who hasn't smiled once this entire conversation? I just leave you to think about it." She sat up on the window seal and giving a wave to the gun still pointed at her jumped off.

The courtyard was empty; the outer walls were devoid of guards as well. Clearly Leshii doesn't plan to detain her, which could mean she gets to leave or be shot in the head by a sniper. Either way, there's no need to hurry. She lit a cigarette and walked briskly to the woods. Her bike was where she left it. She started the motor then quickly turned it off.

"And how are you this morning?" she asked turning around.

"Do not misunderstand what has happened here tonight," Leshii stood no more than three feet behind the slayer. He didn't seem armed and she could probably snap his neck before he could pull a gun out, but Faith was too smart to take him for a fool. There was no way he would be with her alone. "There are no weaknesses in my defenses. I have provided the young Mr. Novikov with this location. I have allowed you to enter. I've done these things because I was curious. My curiosity has been satisfied. No one shall be allowed here again. Tell that to your mistress. I do not like to kill out of misunderstanding."

"Consider it done. Anything else?"

Leshii didn't respond. Faith put on her helmet and turned on the engine.

"Oh, a question," she called out as the gangster started to walk away, "The highway off the autobahn was clearly designed to hit every freaking village even remotely on the way. That's like seventy extra kilometers by my count. Is there a back road or a shortcut I can take?"

"There's a dirt road that cuts straight through. It starts off three miles to the East of here. It's not passable for most cars, but your bike should do fine," Leshii answered.

"Thanks a bunch!" Faith revved up the motor and disappeared through the trees.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Zemfira stared wild eyed at her boss. "Why, the hell, did you do that?"

"I wasn't aware the byroad was a secret."

"That's not the point! She was mocking you, couldn't you tell? These psychotic bitches! The average lifespan of a slayer is barely nineteen, but they all act like they are immortal!"

Leshii stopped and turned to his companion. Faith did not react to her which meant Zemfira had cloaked herself in an invisibility spell. Whether the spell was still active was not for him to say.

"She doesn't think she's immortal. She knew very well I could kill her. She also knew that the decision was already made and whatever she says would not change it. Another in her place would make an idle threat or give a show of boastful defiance that her kind is so fond of. Instead, she chose to request a piece of useful information. She may not be the smartest among them, but she's certainly the wisest; a warrior without fear or pride. My sister is fortunate to have her as an ally," He went up the stone steps leading up to the general quarters while Zemfira shuffled downstairs pondering the implications of her boss's sudden fondness for slayers.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"I did not expect to find you here. Your friend must have rattled you, although I'm sure you didn't show."

The sound of his voice caught her totally by surprise. Leshii never lingered in bed before or started nighttime conversations.

"It's easier to lie to others," she answered, turning to face him, "You never had that problem, have you? Doubt what you do is right?"

"I'm capable of making errors. Everyone is"

"But not about 'why'. Have you ever got that wrong?"

"That question always has just one answer."

"Always, really? The second she was born and every second since?"

"I didn't pay much attention to her when she was born. She was just some strange little thing my mother fussed over. I wasn't jealous, the distraction was welcome, I wasn't beaten as often," Leshii stood up and walked over to his desk. Just as he always have he took the pipe out of the drawer and filled it up. Yet, unlike before Dawn didn't pester him with questions. In fact she remained completely quiet, certain that he hasn't finished answering. She was right. After a few puffs Leshii continued,

"When she was a toddler there was a raid on the garbage dump where we stayed. We hid, but a rat must have spooked her and Lyuda cried. An officer heard her, tried to take her. Perhaps he meant well, I don't know, but my mother slit his throat with a piece of metal. She was a poor killer: he had time to scream and his comrades descended upon us. Lyuda could already walk, but she wasn't very good at it. My mother grabbed her and put her in my arms. She told me to carry her far away. I hadn't eaten in two days and she felt so heavy in my arms. I stopped no more than twenty meters away and watched what happened. My mother lunged and clawed at the militiamen as they beat and stumped her to death. She never tried to run, she was covering our escape." He paused again. Dawn felt him staring at her as if trying to figure out why he is telling her all of this. She knew from experience that question had no answer and she waited patiently for him to go on as he undoubtedly would.

"Even then I considered my mother little more than an animal. All she ever cared for was her next meal or the next fix. She would sell herself for it, sell me. Yet here she was sacrificing her life for this strange little person next to me. This child had to be something so extraordinary. She mattered. Nothing else I've seen mattered, but she did. At that moment it all made sense. The pain, the hunger, all that composed my life, it all had a reason. My life matters; what I do matters because I do it for her. I exist because she does."

"And if she didn't?"

"No matter the misery a young child's conciseness is dominated by survival instinct. Suicide is not a concept they understand. Things change as you grow and my thoughts sometimes drifted into that realm. I came close once. After days of torture I awoke to find myself wrapped head to toe in bandages, lying in what was meant to be my grave. They all died like that. I imagine he thought for children who could no longer feel pain the only torture left was fear. He was wrong. Our traumatized minds welcomed peace, even if buried alive. The drugs were so soothing in my bloodstream. I felt all I had to do was close my eyes and drift away forever from this horror, but I didn't. I could never abandon her. I waited as long as I could, then clawed my way out. They say you are lucky to find someone you'd die for. I believe you're lucky if you have someone you'd live for.

"The hardest thing in this world is to live in it," the words left Dawn's lips a barely audible whisper. Buffy's parting words to her on the tower. Forever burnt into her mind just like her sister's lifeless body beneath it. "She doesn't love you as much, do you know that?" she said out loud. "She loves you, but not as much as you love her"

"I know"

"Doesn't it bother you?"

"Do you think it bothers your sister?"

"I don't know. It sure as hell bothers me."

"Why?"

What a strange question. The notion was obvious, but Dawn struggled to put it into words.

"I don't know. Makes me feel deficient, like I'm a bad person," she answered unsure.

"You misunderstand then. Love is sacrifice and sacrifice must be accepted as well as given. If you loved each other equally you'd both jump off the tower and what would be the point of that?"

"Buffy deserves better. She deserves someone who loves her more"

"And you don't think yourself capable. Why?"

"Love is sacrifice, that's what you said. If I love her more I have to be ready for a greater sacrifice, but she has already given her life for me, how can I top that?"

"Sacrifice is subjective. Your values don't match hers. Buffy is a hero. Life isn't the most important thing for them or they wouldn't throw it away so easily. Find what's most important to you."

"Easy to say," Dawn sighed and sat up on the edge of the bed, "What do heroes think important?"

"I can't know, " Leshii shrugged, "I'm not one. If I had to guess, I would say their sense of righteousness; the concept of themselves as heroes. To commit a sin, an unforgivable sin for which there can be no penance, that would probably be the greatest sacrifice a hero can make."

"I don't have problems with sinning"

"You are not a hero."

"No shit," Dawn smirked without enthusiasm. It was a familiar pattern. No matter the topic Leshii's thoughts and convictions were so obnoxiously clear and straightforward while hers were a hopeless tangled mess, "Buffy's life, is that my most important thing?"

"It can't be; it doesn't belong to you. Buffy has gifted you her death, not her life."

"Is it one of those things that you don't know are important until you loose them? Because I hate those," she grumbled watching the Russian blowing out smoke rings with almost mechanical precision, "What's your thing? What's worth the most to you?"

There was no answer. She waited for a few minutes then called out his name. Leshii remained perfectly still save for the right hand that moved the opium pipe out of his mouth every twenty seconds. Must be that point they reach every night when she turns invisible and mute. Dawn sighed, got off the bed, threw on her robe, and headed out. She glanced back from the doorway and saw Leshii get off his chair and walk to the window. The moonlight reflecting off his pale skin gave his torso a surreal ghostly glow. He extended his hand and let it slide slowly up the glass, until most of his upper body was leaning against the glass. Pressing his lips to the surface he exhaled. The opium smoke snaked out of Leshii's mouth and spread dimming his reflection. As she was closing the door behind her he finally answered.


	9. Chapter 9: Witches

**Chapter 9: Witches**

Those two words have occupied her for days now. Was this it, the answer she was looking for? What did he mean, or to be more accurate, how did it apply to her? It wasn't exactly '42'1, but it wasn't step by step instructions either. Thankfully she has just gotten her hands on something equally as fascinating, the Key. McClure proved quite thorough and there were thousands of electronic documents for her to peruse. The artifact passed through dozens of hands; sorcerers, alchemists, priests. They experimented with it, worshiped it, and occasionally tried to destroy it as an evil conjuring. The writings were numerous and detailed. Also, mostly useless, essentially a protracted list of failures. The only consistent result they were able to generate with the Key was the temporary disintegration of boundaries between the current reality and the surrounding demonic dimensions. Perhaps this was the origin of the name. Still, almost all believed that the tremendous power bound within the artifact can be channeled to other uses. Experiments to find these went on for century after century with minimal results. None of these people had any idea of what the Key was. Even pooling all their knowledge together the best Dawn could come up was a list of things it wasn't, casting a significant doubt on the old adage 'something is better nothing". Of some interest were the notes of a Croatian mage who postulated that the Key is a living entity. He believed it was the only way to explain its very inconsistent responses to identical stimuli. All this poking and prodding without any regard to pain and suffering it may cause. Would they have done the same to her? All she had of these long passed men and women were electronic copies of mostly impersonal lab notes, yet somehow she had no doubt as to the answer. Dawn knew too well what it's like to be hunted. Now the people she trusts the most: Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles are also the only people left alive who know her secret. Unfortunately this implies at least one other who does, the First. One word from the Creature and the nightmare starts all over, yet It keeps silent. Why? Why not blab Stefka's true identity to every one of Leshii's enemies? Wouldn't the First benefit from the distraction? The call was only a second away from going to voice mail when the ringing finally got through to her.

It was dusk. The red tinge of the sun blended into the orange of the torch lights as Dawn descended down the narrow winding stairs into the basement. First turn on the right then another right. Just like the sewers in Kiev. Perhaps it's Leshii's lone eye that makes him subconsciously veer in that direction. She knocked on the door. To her surprise it was Bones who opened it.

"Come join the fun," he smirked and gestured invitingly. She followed his gaunt frame inside. It was warm. Leshii was sitting on a wooden bench churning logs in the fireplace. To the left of him a man was sitting in a wheel chair. Moving in closer she noticed his legs, arms, and torso were strapped in several places. A gag was placed in his mouth. His face was too badly beaten to tell with any certainty, but Dawn placed his age in late thirties.

"Meet Mr. Austin, " Leshii spoke in Russian, "Mr. Austin has information that he does not wish to share with us."

"Clearly," she answered as calmly as she could, "Why am I here? Shouldn't you have called Zemfira instead?"

"Zemfira is very good at inflicting pain for its own sake. Interrogation is a skill she was never interested in mastering."

"I meant she reads minds."

"Not this one. Mr. Austin is a witch hunter. She has no power over him."

"Wait, didn't you say you killed all the witch hunters?"

Leshii finally put down the fire poker and turned to Dawn.

"No, I didn't. I would never make such a blanket statement. I killed those I knew to be working for the order of Taraka. This man worked for the Watchers' Council. The name of his present employer is one of the items you will help me retrieve"

"What makes you think he knows anything?"

"The spell that chased Zemfira out of Istanbul is being weakened significantly by the anomaly this castle is built on, but not nullified. There's not a creature on record with that kind of power which leaves just one possibility..."

"Personal item," Dawn finished for him.

"A witch of Zemfira's stature is well aware of the power these items have. She has only a few and they are accounted for. She burns her hair and nails as soon as she cuts them. The situation stumped me for a while until I realized that Zemfira wasn't always a powerful witch."

"They robbed her grave," Dawn muttered, "Gypsies bury all kinds of trinkets with their dead."

"Finding a three hundred year old grave of a no name nomad is not an easy task. Luckily I didn't need the grave, just the man who was looking for one. A Brit digging up half of Basarabia was an easy mark. Didn't even bother changing his name when filing for permits. His employer must not have informed him of who Zemfira was working for. Quite an oversight," Leshii paused for a second. "We need to know what he retrieved, who he gave it to, and who gave the order."

"I don't know what you expect me to do. I can't hit him any harder than you have already," deep in her stomach Dawn was getting a distinct feeling that something terrible was about to happen and she needed to get out before it did.

"You have come to me to learn. Today I will teach you interrogation. There are two ways of obtaining information from a person: bribery and fear. One of them will always work if taken to the necessary extreme. All this," Leshii pointed to the prisoner's face, "was mostly a test. I needed to know what kind of a person he is to devise an appropriate strategy." He took Dawn's elbow and walked her over to within a few feet of the wheelchair. "The righteous types are the hardest. I divide them into two categories, martyrs and heroes. Martyrs arrive with the notion that their mission in life is complete and death is the only thing remaining. That is their weakness. As their psyche is broken down by regular torture, they focus more and more on their remaining ambition until they care for nothing else. At that point they will tell you everything you want to know to get that eternal peace: bribery. The process is long, weeks, even months. Fortunately our man is of the hero type," the last sentence was spoken in English. It was clear the rest of the lecture was meant for the prisoner as much as Dawn, "Heroes are capable of sacrificing their lives, but it's not their intent. Mr. Austin is planning on surviving. He believes the information he has prevents me from murdering him. Being a hero he also believes in good triumphing over evil. Even now he believes that he will win in the end. He'll either escape or be rescued. All he has to do is hold on long enough and everything will be alright. As long as he believes these things we won't get anything. It is our goal to convince him that he's wrong. What do you propose we do?"

"You can kill him, but that would make it hard to get information. You can kill all of his friends, except he won't tell you who they are because they aren't dead yet. It's all very circular," Dawn answered with a failed attempt at a smile.

"There's a the third requirement"

"There is?"

"That if he holds on long enough everything will be alright."

"I don't get it"

"Let me demonstrate." Leshii walked over to the wheelchair and thrust two fingers of his left hand into Austin's eye socket. The man screamed into his gag while Dawn covered her own mouth to keep quiet. The gangster leaned over his prisoner, just inches from his mutilated face, "Now even if he was rescued this very moment, things won't be quite alright, would they?" He straightened up and looked over to the mortified girl. "Your turn"

"What?"

"It doesn't have to be an eye. In fact, I would prefer to leave his vision intact. The expectation of an event enhances its effect," out of the corner opposite the fireplace Leshii dragged out a cart next to the chair. On top of it were two open tool kits filled with cutting implements of various sizes. "Choose a body part you wish to remove; pick an appropriate instrument and proceed."

"I can't," Dawn took a few steps back, her head starting to spin.

"You can. You have. Zemfira kept her word; she didn't say anything," he continued looking straight into the girl's frightened eyes, "But I have been with her long enough to see where her work ends and someone else's begins. You were amateurish, but imaginative. I think you'll do well."

"That was different," Dawn barely managed to squeeze out a response.

"Was it? What about that captain in Chechnya?"

"They deserved it."

"Says who, you? It's only different because you say it's different. Why? Because he thinks what he does is right? I'm sure the captain thought he was within his rights. Mr. Austin is withholding information crucial to our operation. He's endangering your sister's life. The damage his silence is causing is far greater than any of those other persons."

"He doesn't know that."

"Do you think it will make a difference?" Leshii snapped his fingers in Bones' direction and the underling pulled the gag out of the prisoner's mouth. The Englishman proceeded to cough out all the spit that has accumulated in his mouth; his breathing was rapid and angry.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize what he was going to do," she started out tentatively, "This is all just one giant misunderstanding. I can't say Zemfira is not evil or harmless. She's neither, and under different circumstances what you are doing would be the right thing, but at the moment it's not." The prisoner's reaction was almost impossible to gauge. He was still slumped over in his chair, gazing downwards. His breathing has normalized, but he uttered nothing.

"What we are facing is a bigger danger," Dawn continued. "We need Zemfira's help. We need all of these men's help fight a greater evil. Do you understand?"

"Greater men will fight greater evil. I'll fight the evil I know," the Englishman's voice was low, but steady.

"You are wasting time. You should just get to it," Leshii chimed from afar.

"You are not helping!" Dawn screamed. She tried to calm down, but every second she took made her feel more and more like she was loosing the grasp on the situation. "I don't know what I can say to make you believe that helping Zemfira is a good thing, but you have to know that your life is more important than her death. You want to fight evil? You can't do it when you are a blind death-mute paraplegic! Eventually he will make you tell, trust me, but then it'll be too late. You don't know what he is! He'll make you. If you are capable of believing anything I say, believe this!"

The girl's desperate plea seemed to have some affect on the prisoner. He lifted his head and looked up at her face.

"I don't know what he is, but I sure as hell know what you are. You are a coward as well as a liar. These people that you hold so different from yourself, you know what they do and you excuse it in the name of fighting the greater evil. So what makes me so special? You don't care if I get tortured and killed; you simply hate to dirty yourself watching."

The calm tone of the man's words made them even more corrosive. They filtered through her ear drums and descended into her stomach pushing up that knot of anger and desperation. She tried to speak, but the words couldn't find a way out.

"He's right you know," Leshii piped in again, now in Russian, "It's pathetic. Are you seriously going to endanger your sister's life based on some self-imposed moral technicality? Are you really that selfish?"

The girl turned to the gangster then back to the prisoner. Their voices overlapped in her head, twisting and turning, filling her up till she felt there was no room left for her own thoughts. She turned away from both of them grabbing hold of the tool cart with both hands.

"You are worse than them. At least they hold no illusions," Austin continued. "There's no moral superiority to not doing yourself what you already consider acceptable for others. You are afraid you won't be able to face yourself, but you have long lost that battle. You see a hero where there's nothing but a loathsome, crooked child!"

Dawn screamed. The cleaver in her hand dropped down slicing the prisoner limb at the wrist. The blood squirted everywhere.

"Here, " she heard through the fog and felt the handle of the fire poker where cleaver used to be, "Sear the wound; you don't want him to bleed out." Without thinking she pressed the red glowing end into the stub. Austin's face in front of her contorted in pain. His mouth was open. He was probably screaming, but she couldn't hear anything. Someone took the poker from her hand. She stumbled over in the directions of the fireplace when it hit her. The smell of burned flesh poured down her mouth and nostrils. Dawn folded over holding her stomach. She felt her insides churning preparing to burst out her throat when Bones pulled her up and thrust a lit cigarette into her mouth.

"Here, nothing kills the smell like a good smoke," he said helping her over to the bench.

"We wait now, " said Leshii sitting down beside her. "It's good to give the subject some time for the situation to sink in."

Dawn tried smoking once before, in 8th grade. She almost threw up. This time around it had the opposite effect. Her body and mind seem to settle as the white cylinder grew shorter. When it was almost out she motioned Bones for another and he was happy to oblige. The break was coming up on half an hour. Bones, bored out of his mind was pacing around the room when he stumbled upon Austin's severed hand. Picking it up he twirled it about pensively as if trying to recall something.

_As carcass was being carved up by his dad_

_The butcher's kid paces around him, mad:_

"_I told you to do it while mom was alive!_

_Carrion's worth only buck twenty five!"_

"Pushkin," he finished dramatically announcing the author of the limerick.

"What?"

"Not _the_ Pushkin," Bones added taken aback by Dawn's vocal response, "A guy we had in the gang a while back. Knew hundreds of these, hence the nickname. Personally, I prefer him to the original. How about you?" He poked the prisoner with his own limb, "I bet you are a Shakespeare kind of guy, right? I don't think he understands Russian. Ask him if he likes Shakespeare."

The look in Dawn's eyes required no verbalizing.

"Whatever," Bones raised up all three hands in a mock surrender, "Just making conversation"

"Alright, my turn"

The words were spoken calmly, even quietly, but the sound cut across Dawn's ears like one of those instruments shimmering on the small table.

"A hand is a natural choice, but for greater effect you want to choose a part that isn't easily replaced by a prosthetic," said Leshii picking a small knife with a very sharp and narrow blade. He crouched in front of the prisoner and slit open the front of his pants. He grabbed the man's genitals at the base and pulled them slightly readying the area for the incision. "Get the poker," Leshii ordered Dawn, most likely, her being seated next to the fireplace. She didn't move watching Austin's eyes, wide as saucers, as he screamed something into his gag.

"Bones," Leshii motioned the thin gangster with his scalpel. The gag was removed, but the prisoner fell suddenly silent.

"I understand your hesitation, Mr. Austin. You are afraid that if you reveal what you know you will loose your leverage, yet the torture would go on. All I want is information. Once I have it there would be no point in continuing. I am not enjoying myself. Are you enjoying yourself, Dawn?"

"No," she answered hoarsely

"I'm going to assume you are not enjoying yourself either, Mr. Austin. We all have better things to do," for a few seconds they looked at each other eye to eye, the man's genitals still firmly in the gangsters grasp. "As you wish, " Leshii finally shrugged and raised the knife.

"Stop!" the prisoner closed his undamaged eye trying unsuccessfully to stop a tear from running down his face. "What do you want to know?"

"Who gave you the orders?"

"Mr. Traverse and I used the draft option of an email account to communicate. That way there's no message to intercept. I assumed one of the surviving Watchers has taken it over."

"Or the First, " Dawn spoke grimly from the back, "It would know all Traverse's passwords"

"Where are the items you recovered?"

"I gave them all to my contacts in Glasgow."

'Who are they?"

"Two women. I've never seen them before. They knew me; they new the pass phrase, so I gave them the items."

"I need names."

"I don't know their names."

"You are not being very helpful, Mr. Austin," Leshii hand having never let go of his prisoner now squeezed harder, "Perhaps your memory needs further incentivizing."

"I swear!" the man cried desperately, almost hyperventilating from fear. "They were British. One's around forty, the other in her early twenties. I think the younger one may have been Scottish," Austin kept turning his head side to side trying to remember anything else. "They referred to each other as 'sister', but I don't think they are related."

"Nuns?" Leshii looked up inquisitively at Dawn

"Witches," she answered, "In a close nit coven they refer to each other as sisters."

"A coven. Now that is something. Not an individual, not a random grouping of individuals, but an established British coven; likely with close ties to the Watchers. There are only so many of them," he rose to his feet and placed the scalpel back on the table. "We are done. Tell Zemfira he's all hers as long as she keeps him alive. He may still be useful."

Austin didn't have time to protest as Bones shoved the gag back into this mouth and wheeled him past Dawn out of the room.

"We are finished. You may return to your studies." Without a word, she stood up and walked out the door. Outside Zemfira has now taken over as the wheelchair driver.

"Look!" she shouted excitedly to Dawn, "I finally got a boy! He isn't exactly in brand new condition, but," she nodded in the direction of the prisoner's sliced slacks, "he's still a boy. Coming with or taking a break?"

The reply was a blank stare.

"Suite yourself," the vampire shrugged, "The boss says I have to keep him around for a while, so feel free to drop by anytime," she smiled and pushed the chair down the corridor. Dawn watched as the witch disappeared into the entrance of her personal dungeon. She stood there for a minute staring at the wooden door then turned around and walked away.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Willow felt a bit suspenseful going up to Buffy's office. She's been in Rome for months and didn't even know she had one. Buffy never had a proper study area even back in her Sunnydale home; choosing instead to settle with a textbook on her bed or the living room couch. Tutoring her at a desk in the school library was a nightmare. For some reason Buffy's brain seemed to function so much better fully vertically, on her feet, or horizontally, lying down. Willow wished she could bet someone the Slayer's office will have a nice comfortable couch in it, but she was very much alone. No so Buffy. Even without touching the handle the witch knew there were other people inside. She paused, but was mentally waved in by her friend. Inside she found Buffy leaning way back in her chair with Stefka standing against the wall to the right of her. In front of the desk Samira was loudly protesting something. A good looking sofa next to the doorway was taking up the rest of the wall.

"It's not fair!, " the Persian girl gesticulated wildly, "It's been weeks!"

"There's no statue of limitation on unauthorized parties with boys and wine," Buffy replied authoritatively.

"Boys and wine, oh no!" Samira mocked her, "They certainly don't have any of those at the clubs we go to all the time!"

"You go, but almost a quarter of the girls are under sixteen. Najah just turned thirteen. Rasa, May, and Olga are barely fourteen. I don't want them exposed to liquor and those sex maniacs you hang out with!"

"They are not sex maniacs, they are Italian! And Najah, that little burqa happy tattle-tale, told me I'll burn in jahannan2 and barricaded herself inside her room. The rest of the youngsters were only allowed in under strict terms: one glass of wine and no bracelet. The guys were all in on it: no bracelet – no touching"

"Bracelet?" Buffy scoffed, "Handcuffs couldn't keep a guy off Rasa."

"She's that hot?" Willow asked skeptically.

"She's that top heavy Lithuanian blonde with legs up to her ears."

"That girl is fourteen?" Willow mouth flew open, "She can't be fourteen. That's just...cruel."

"Fine," Samira resigned, "So I busted a few noses, but after that she was good as a leper!"

"Until you got drunk and stopped caring," Buffy added.

"I didn't drink"

"Am I supposed to believe that?"

"She's not lying, she's Muslim," Stefka finally joined the conversation.

"I think you're confusing Muslims with Vulcans"

"I think she means Muslims don't drink, Buffy" said Willow trying to hide her smile.

"Right, I knew that"

"Persians are known for smoking a lot of hashish, though," Stefka suddenly turned defense inside out as Samira practically choked with indignation.

"That is a vile stereotype!"

"Please," Buffy smirked, "You were as high as a kite. I just assumed it was alcohol, but just verified it was indeed hashish. Thanks, Will, " she added tapping her temple with her finger.

"What?" Samira gave both a confused look before the epiphany struck her right between the giant black eyes, "No way! She can't do that! You are not allowed to read minds without consent!" she yelled at Willow, "It's in the rule book; you wrote the rule book!"

"I did," Willow nodded calmly, "And I didn't read your mind"

"She really didn't," Buffy smiled patronizingly from her chair, "I just wanted to see your reaction. You are busted, missy"

Realizing she'd just been had Samira turned from Buffy to Willow in search of some sort of way out.

"That's no proof," she stumbled, "It'll never hold up in court!"

"What court?" Buffy raised an eyebrow

"Don't I get a court? Fine! I had a few puffs, it's not even a real drug, it's like marijuana!"

"Marijuana is a drug"

"Please, you are from California! Are you going to tell me you never smoked a joint?"

"Yes!" Buffy stated unequivocally.

"I think I inhaled some once from the air vent connected to the next room," Willow replied unsure.

"And here I thought one of you wasn't a nerd," Samira sniped snidely.

"Hey!" Buffy snapped back which got an immediate look from Willow.

"Hey your 'hey'!" the witch exclaimed full of indignation.

"I'm just saying I'm not a nerd. Not that there's anything wrong with it," Buffy backpedaled,

"Oh, that is so tired!"

"Are you going to fight with each other now?" Stefka interjected calmly.

"She's right!" Willow gave Samira the evil eye, "That sneaky dope fiend got us all turned around!"

"This would not have happened if you implemented the drug testing policy I recommended four months ago," Stefka continued, "All hands mandatory testing every two weeks and random sample testing every two days. We should start today."

"Thank you, miss Grand Inquisitor, I'll take care of it," the Slayer replied impatiently. "There'll be a memo," she said turning to Samira now, "but pass this along to your 'study buddies' as soon as you out the door: you have till eight today to turn all your stashes in to me no questions asked. Tomorrow Willow will be putting up a drug detection field. Anyone sneaking anything into the club will be instantly in deep, deep trouble. As for the party, I suppose I can talk about how all that alcohol and drugs make you stupid long term and very stupid short term. I can talk about how a slayer can get ruthied just like anyone else and with forty bedrooms in the building no way you could keep an eye on everything and everybody. I won't, I'm not your mother. What I am is a Slayer and I'll speak for the good people of Rome who you were supposed to be protecting."

"We did all the patrols," Samira started, but was immediately cut off.

"I bet they were real thorough, too, since nobody wanted to get back to the boring old party, right? And how sober were the teams, exactly? What if they ran into something and needed backup? What if the First attacked? You couldn't even slay a Pokemon in your condition! The worst thing about it, though, is that everyone thinks the party was a success. You are a role model and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I won't allow it and the only way to do it is to make you the least popular person in the building, so I'm going take away your TV privileges indefinitely"

"What?" Samira exclaimed in disbelief, "I mean, I grudgingly accept."

"Of course," Buffy continued, "Since all TVs are technically in public areas I'm going to have to shutdown all of them to enforce your punishment. I'm going to make sure to emphasize that point and I'll promise to restore the service as soon as someone figures out a better way to prevent you from cheating. Imagine all these new admirers of yours thinking up different ways of confining and isolating you. Let's see how much your popularity holds by the end of the month. Especially with the girls that were out visiting their families or on the mission with me; they are really going to love you. You are free to go. You, too," she added nodding in Stefka's direction. The tall blonde followed despondent Samira out, but stopped in the doorway.

"I just want to say that the Inquisition was an institution of the Catholic church. I'm Eastern Orthodox"

"Uh-ha," said Buffy giving her chair a twirl, "And they never burned heretics at the stake?"

"Rarely. They were mostly impaled on them," Stefka replied.

Willow followed the girl out with her eyes then turned back to Buffy as the door closed.

"Are we sure she's not on anything?"

"Relax, that's just her being funny," the Slayer smirked.

"Yep, 'funny', that's the word. Speaking of words, here are three more for you: drug, detection, field"

"What about it?"

"For starters, there's no such thing."

"They don't know that," Buffy followed her answer with a chair twirl in the opposite direction.

"Wow, " Willow was honestly impressed, "You are getting really good at this! You know, if you didn't blow up Sunnydale High, that second time, with the rest of the town, you would have made an awesome school principal. Maybe that can be your civilian job! You could hire me as your Computer Science teacher. Or, maybe, a Math teacher? No, a Chemistry teacher!"

"Willow, I'd hire you to teach all of my subjects. Except for shop and P.E."

"Yeah, I was kind of born with four left feet," the redhead giggled, "So this has been fun, but it's not why you called me here, is it?"

"No," Buffy shook her head, "Giles and I wanted to discuss something with you, but obviously he is not here."

"No biggie," Willow shrugged, "Actually there's a spell I've been dying to try ever since I got back from Seoul. Do you mind if I skip into the artifact storage for a bit? How long do you think I have?"

"No idea. Go, experiment, we'll just meet you there."

"Cool!" Willow almost squealed with excitement and ran out the door. Buffy looked at her watch, sighed, then grabbing a volume off the desk laid herself out on the sofa.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"I apologize for my tardiness," Giles spoke the moment he stepped through the office door, "Is Willow here?"

"She's down in the storage room," Buffy replied, getting up, "I figure we go down there instead of calling her up or it'll look like we are punishing her or something"

"Agreed," Giles nodded, "Have you decided what you are going to say?"

"Roughly," she answered grimly, "She's going to hate me"

"You can't worry about that, Buffy. This is about what's good for Willow, not whether she'll like you."

"I know," she sighed, "Just half an hour ago I think I turned half the school against me. It needed to be done, but it still sucks. How did this happen, how did I become everybody's mother?"

"Sometimes it becomes part of the job," the Watcher smiled

"No, my job was to be a mother to just one person and I screwed that up"

"Whatever your failings are, Buffy, what happened to Dawn isn't one of them, though you'll always feel that. That's part of what makes you a good parent. As a matter of fact, " he added, "The reason for my delay is certain interesting developments on that front."

Buffy stopped and turned in one swinging motion to face Giles who was one step above her on the staircase.

"You could've started with that!"

The Watcher raised his hand slightly in a calming motion.

"This is all very preliminary. Leshii has reached out to me with a proposal to trade our half of the amulet for a collection of artifacts he collected from the other dig sites."

"Seriously?" the Slayer scoffed

"I don't believe so. I don't think he expects us to make this particular trade. The impression I got is that the possession of the amulet has put us in the game and Leshii is trying to establish lines of communication for some sort cooperation in the future."

"Communication with you?" Buffy asked suspiciously.

"He believes your emotional investment in the situation may interfere with your objectivity."

"He can kiss my emotional ass. I want in."

"Actually, my thoughts on the matter was to leverage his concern into involving Dawn as an intermediary" Giles watched Buffy's expression carefully as he spoke and her reaction didn't disappoint. The mixture of frustration and concern has melted away into something almost resembling a smile.

"Yes, I like those thoughts," she shook her index fingers at him excitedly, "Go with the thoughts."

A few more flights and past the metal vault door they arrived in the artifact storage. Soul recognition force field flushed a muted green letting them through the entryway.

"Willow," Buffy called out, "Where are you?"

"Conference area," came an excited reply.

As they entered the clearing past the storage shelves they saw the source of Willow's excitement. Above the coffee table where the amulet was held up by a small silver tripod hovered a giant translucent cube. Tens of thousands, perhaps millions of hieroglyphs of various sizes filled the space, glowing with a slight bluish hue. The witch seemed to be glowing as well with whatever the color of pride was supposed to be.

"What is this?" Giles and Buffy asked almost in unison.

"That's what's inside the amulet."

"How?" Giles kept switching between Willow and the artifact, "Did you find a replacement half?"

"No," the girl replied, "I just hacked it. It wasn't as hard as you'd think."

"I would think it would be impossible!"

"Like I said, it was a little easier than that," the redhead quipped with a smile.

"I know these," said Buffy who was taking her time to examine the cube. There were actually only three types of symbols put together in groups of three or less. As she moved her hands in a particular area of the magical hologram they would scatter and new groups would appear."

"These are the ancient symbols for earth, water, and fire," said Giles taking a closer look himself.

"No air"

"I think it's safe to assume air is in Leshii's piece of the amulet. The metaphor is clear: put the four basic elements together and whatever is stored inside will reveal itself," the Watcher answered

"If air it wants, air it will get," Buffy waved her hands around, "It's not like there's a shortage of it. What do you say, Willow, can you hack it in somehow?"

"Sure thing," the witch snickered, "Just give me a decade or two to brush up on my Elemental magic"

"A bold statement," said Giles pointedly

"I'd say," said Buffy, "You never needed more than a week to catch up on any subject. I'll give you two for this one, tops."

"That's not what he meant," Willow replied.

"Elemental magic is the Loch Ness monster of the Wicca community," Giles expounded, "People claim to have seen, but there's no conclusive proof it ever existed"

"Until now," corrected Willow

"A bold statement"

"I'll be happy to arbitrate if someone just fills me in," said Buffy trying not to sound too annoyed with the eggheads.

"There's a legend, obviously," Willow smiled, "That the magics taught to mankind at the beginning of civilization were rooted in the secrets of Creation itself. However, to prevent humans from doing something stupid with all that power each one could only master one of the four elements. Which is pretty insane when you think about it. Imagine being able to part the seas, but not float a pencil. Anyway, the magic based on single element, in its purest form, is called Elemental magic."

"How can the amulet be the proof when if it uses three of them?" Buffy raised an eyebrow.

"I'm getting to that. All the magi would belong to one of the Elemental schools, however, once in a while, the four heads, the arch magi, would come together to create something truly amazing for the benefit of mankind."

"Let me guess, one day they screwed up"

"Everyone does eventually," Willow replied a bit pensively, but quickly bounced back into her cheerful storytelling tone, "They released some kind of force of nature or a demon, depending on what version you hear, which wiped out the civilization as they knew it. The Elemental schools collapsed, survivors scattered across the world, knowledge lost, blah, blah, blah, the usual."

"So basically it's a shameless rip off of the legend of Atlantis," the Slayer scoffed

"There are actually dozens of these myths, Buffy, some date well before Plato," said Giles.

"All the more reason to thinks they are based on an actual event," Willow added, "Like the Biblical flood stories being rooted in the creation of the Black Sea eight thousand years ago3"

"Can we circle back to the amulet, please?" asked Buffy not appreciating the number of tangents they seem to be sprouting.

"I was doing just that when you interrupted me"

"Sorry"

"When I read Dawnie's emails about the language on the artifacts being the composition of bits and pieces of various ancient and modern tongues I thought of the Elemental magics legend. Some people believe in UFO's, this was my thing. The amulet wasn't made of a single element so it had to be a combination job, which gave me an idea. The arch magi may have been unparalleled geniuses in their own field, but probably not so proficient in putting the elements together. I found some ancient spells on splitting water and fire from earth in Kim's library; created a fire from water one myself; a little adjustment here and there, and voila!"

"I have to say, Willow," Giles took off his glasses and started slowly wiping the lenses with a handkerchief, "it wasn't so long ago that I considered you passed from simply extraordinary talented into the genius category, but now I have a distinct impression that we'll need to create a wholly new one for you quite soon"

Willow's smile has turned to a full faced grin.

"I'm so happy you've come to visit!"

"You just hold on to that feeling," said Buffy in a way that wiped the smile right off.

"Why? Why did you come?"

"Many reasons," Buffy replied for the Watcher, "Your tests results for one."

"My test.." Willow started out confused, but caught on in a second. Her eyes narrowed and lower jaw shook in anger, "You had no right! This is private.."

"I don't care!" Buffy's stern voice rang loudly off the walls, but being just short of shout made it even more effective. Physically smallest of the three she was now without a doubt in charge of the room and the situation. "Three tumors is not 'safe'. I forbid you from using this spell again. I forbid you from using anything like that spell ever again."

"That spell is the only protection we have! I'm not going to just stand there and let everybody die!"

"And what happens when you die, Will? How's that going to work?" Buffy took a step forward forcing Willow to take an automatic step back.

"Three tiny masses removed in an outpatient procedure! It's not a big deal" she tried to stand her ground in the argument at least.

"Repeated exposure increases your risks geometrically. What happens if they miss one? If it develops somewhere where it's inoperable?"

"Then I'll remove it myself. I'm a super genius, remember"

"Manipulating cells is not moving mountains, Willow" Giles entered the fray, "It's not about power. The level of control required is immense. If you are off by even one micron…"

"I'll liquefy my innards," the witch interrupted impatiently, "I know what I'm doing!"

"Then you are aware that you are using this self-mutilation and needless risk-taking to atone for what happened in Peru. I thought it was more subconscious, but I apparently I'm wrong," he shrugged putting his glasses back on.

"What?" the redhead exclaimed exasperated at the look in Buffy's eyes. "You are going to trust his judgment? Because he did such a good job with Dawn?"

"I want to trust your judgment, Will. Please, help me do that."

"Just leave me alone!" Bursting into tears Willow ran passed Buffy out of the basement.

"That went well," Buffy sighed plunking herself into the nearest chair.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful," said Giles taking the seat across, "It's getting to be a pattern."

"Don't you dare start!" Buffy shouted angrily, "I cannot handle another breakdown!"

"Just stating the obvious. You so rarely ask for my help these days and I can't seem to come through."

"I'm not stupid, Giles," Buffy leaned looking upwards at his lens covered eyes, "I know things have changed. I've grown as a person, as a Slayer. I'm able to solve my own problems and ones I can't, ones I give to you, usually border on unsolvable and that's just not fair. I'm totally ruining your batting average. That's not your fault; you are as good as ever, better even…"

"Just not good enough to keep up with your needs," Giles finished for her. "I am indeed pushing fifty; there's not a lot of untapped potential left. Still, what I lack in my advanced age in ability I compensate with the wisdom to delegate. I have been looking into attaching full time therapists to each office. They would combine specialization in adolescents and post traumatic stress with thorough training in Slayer lore. Doctor Benjamin Friedman is only a few days away from completing his courses. I will assign him to Rome."

"That's great, Giles"

"I can provide you with a doctor, Buffy, but I cannot make Willow see him"

"Oh, she'll be there. She'll be there if I have to drag her by her hair!" She pronounced and paused. "I didn't mean for this to rhyme," she said almost apologetically.

"It'll be our secret," the Watcher smiled.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dawn stood still for a second trying to get her bearings. She was in a small room. It felt familiar, but the heavy haze left her unable to see more than two feet in front of her. Somewhere far away a melody was playing, growing louder. 'Sweet dreams'. Another nightmare, what is it going to show her now? She felt herself moving forward, her hand grasping the doorknob. No, no more bodies. She tried pulling away, but the fingers wouldn't let go the handle. She felt her hand moving against her will, trying to open the door. Dawn ground her teeth struggling for control of her limbs until finally tearing her hand away with such force that she lost her balance, falling onto all fours. The fog seemed to dissipate and Dawn realized she was in front of her bedroom door. She struggled back to her feet when she noticed the red laces running down her thigh. This was not her lingerie. She gasped in panic throwing a running gaze around her room when she noticed Zemfira sitting on the floor across from her. In front of the little vampire six lighted candles formed a circle around some kind of symbol drawn on the plastic covering the boards. The surprise in the witch's eyes perfectly mirrored Dawn's.

"What the hell was that?" she addressed the frightened teen. "I've never seen anything like it! I have to admit, I have underestimated our friend Willow. That is one wicked protection spell!"

"What? What happened?" Dawn babbled confused. Her head felt heavy and bloated.

"You tell me," Zemfira countered getting off the floor, "One minute I have it, the next: poof! It's like your whole being is a reflection: try to grasp it and all you get is ripples. I never figured Willow capable of this kind of finesse. Any idea where she dug up a mind blocker like that?"

"You were in my head," Dawn's confusion was slowly turning to anger, "Why? Where were you taking me?" The answer came to her like a bolt of lightening. "The lingerie…You were taking me to Leshii! Those women you brought him, they were you!"

"Not all the time," Zemfira smiled slightly angling her head as she looked up at the furious girl, "It's a game we play. He thinks he knows me so well, so I test him. Can he tell when it's me and when it's not? This one time I brought him two girls and they were both me! That totally messed him up!"

"You stay away from my head, you demented freak!" The full realization of the depth of the violation she almost fell victim of shook Dawn to the core. Her high pitched shriek was not an idle outcry, it was a threat, and she meant it. Zemfira felt it as well. The smile disappeared from her face; her eyes narrowed as she slanted her head the other way.

"How do you think I got into your bedroom, Dawn?" she hissed through her teeth, "Do you remember inviting me in? I was asked to be nice, I was asked to share, and I shared, but don't think for a second that anything here is yours. This is my house, my man!" Zemfira's face vamped and Dawn stepped back instinctively.

"That's right, " the vampire growled, advancing as Dawn retreated, "I will do what I want, when I want to. Whatever this spell is in your head, I'll get through and we'll have some fun. I can make it fun for you, Dawn, if I want to. Just don't forget who's in charge here."

"Leshii in charge," the girl answered grimly, but Zemfira just laughed.

"Are you going to tell daddy on me? Go ahead, see if he gives a fuck." Still laughing the witch picked up her candles and disappeared out the door.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was a good plan. She hasn't been with Leshii since the torture session. A little physical reconnect first, then work Zemfira issue into the conversation. Dawn slowed down and leaned in.

"Hey! Are you planning on moving anytime today? If I wanted to make it with a corpse, I…have no good way of finishing this sentence." She rolled off his lap and nudged him with her elbow. "What's going on? What are you so engrossed in?"

"I was thinking that maybe I should kill you," Leshii answered in a matter of fact tone.

Dawn sat up barely containing a smile. "Alright, that's certainly an interesting topic. Why would you kill me?"

"No reason"

"'No reason'!" she mocked him bursting into laughter. "That's hilarious! And you claim you don't have a sense of humor!"

"I have no reason to kill you," Leshii continued paying no heed to her reaction, "As a matter of fact I have every reason to keep you alive. Except that's how It works, doesn't It?" He sat up himself now, peering into the laughing face of the girl. Reaching out with his hand he grasped Dawn by the throat.

"What are you doing?" she asked still smiling.

"What if I do something completely unexpected?" Dawn felt his grip tightening, she couldn't breathe. She grabbed at his fingers, but he was too strong.

"It may scramble Its plans," Leshii continued in the same hollow monotone, squeezing her throat ever tighter. "Start everything over. I may buy her more time. That's safest way, don't you thinks so?"

Dawn was thrashing now, kicking him in the ribs as hard as she could. Her nails sunk into the flesh of his arm drawing trickles of blood to no avail. She felt her consciousness drift into the black fog of oblivion when suddenly he let go. She stayed on the bed for a few seconds coughing and wheezing and as the feeling in her limbs came back so did the blinding fear. She darted out the door naked and barefoot half tripping on the uneven floor boards. She ran down the corridor and turning ran right into Yozh knocking them both to the ground.

"Holly fuck!" all he could say staring at the fallen girl next to him.

Jumping back to her feet she pushed him aside and dashed towards her room leaving the fat man staring in that direction for a good minute.

"Damn!" he kept shaking his head. "I knew I should have splurged on that camera phone!"

Dawn burst into her bedroom, losing her balance in the process. Falling down she managed to slam the door behind her then scattered on all fours into the far corner of the room, in between the bed and the window. Realizing she was still naked she pulled the top sheet off the bed covering herself then reached over into the top drawer of the night stand and pulled out her gun, pointing it at the door. It didn't work. Her hand was shaking so badly she dropped her weapon and did so again trying to pick it up. Letting go off the blanket she reached into the lower drawer of the night stand and grabbed a half empty bottle of brandy. Pulling out the cork with her teeth she took a few gulps to steady herself. She grabbed the handle of the gun with some authority now and was able to hold it in place. Her hands were still shaking, but in a more controllable fashion. Dawn took a deep breath then another big gulp.

"Well aren't you a pretty picture."

Dawn looked up to see the image of Joyce watching her nude daughter sitting on the floor with a bottle of liquor in one hand and a loaded gun in the other.

"What did you expect was going to happen?" she continued sternly. "That you were going to bring the nice boy home for dinner?"

"Leave me alone," the girl whispered taking another, smaller sip.

"Leave you alone with that monster? What kind of mother do you take me for?"

"The fake kind"

"I'm happy you are together enough to take a jibe at me. Now, how about you get dressed and get out of here?"

Dawn removed the bottle from her lips and set it down next to her on the floor.

"So is that's why you are here?" she smirked. "It won't work, I'm not going anywhere."

"You think this gun is going to protect you?" the ghostly image now crouched in front of Dawn staring at her with concerned mother's eyes. "He doesn't have to strangle you; he's been killing you every day; piece by piece. Look at you; look at what he's done to my little girl!"

"There never was a little girl! She was a fake! A piece of fiction made up by some boneheads in a monastery!"

"She was real to me"

That gentle whisper only amplified Dawn's rage.

"That's rich! There's nothing real about you! The fact that I'm so different from the fake memories you have is exactly the proof that this is the real me. You think you can manipulate me into doing what you want, but you can't. I'm here because I chose to come here, because I choose to stay here. These are not fake memories written by someone else. I am what I made myself to be."

"Are you sure about that?"

Dawn simply shut her eyes and when she opened them the vision of her mother was gone. She got up, put the gun on the bed and opened the dresser. She put on a t-shirt and underpants then grabbed the rest of the clothes and laid them out in a nice tubular shape on the bed. She grabbed the sheet off the floor and covered the clothes pile. Stepping over to the side facing the door she made sure it overhung all the way to the floor. She walked back, grabbed the leftover sweater and crawled under the bed. Folding it into a nice little pillow she put the gun under it and closed her eyes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The morning came unexpectedly quickly. Dawn was surprised that after everything that happened she actually managed to fall asleep. Must be the brandy. She crawled out of her hiding place and looked at the clock. Sixteen past eight. There was still some water left in her little plastic tub so she could wash up without leaving her room. Much calmer though she was she didn't feel like strolling the halls needlessly. She sat dressed on the bed for a good fifteen minutes before psyching herself enough for a trip downstairs.

The mess hall was full. Everyone was enjoying their breakfast. Leshii was spooning his oatmeal, Zemfira had some sort of blood serial in front of her, while Yozh was devouring his usual four egg omelet. Given what happen this everyday arrangement seemed so unbelievably bizarre that Dawn just stood there waiting for some kind of reaction to her presence.

"Good morning," Zemfira greeted her cheerfully, "And how was your night? Same old, same old?" she smiled coyly and glanced over at Yozh who proceeded to choke on his eggs.

"Not at all," Dawn replied as calmly as she could, "The First visited me again last night."

The smile has vanished from Zemfira's face as she looked over at Leshii who put his spoon down and turned to Dawn.

"It came as my mother, telling me I'm in danger; telling me to leave," she went on.

Leshii turned back to Zemfira whose eyes grew wide with fear as he stared her down.

"Did I not tell you to fix this?"

"The bitch is lying! She's setting me up!"

"I can tell when she's lying. She is not lying."

"So you think I am?"

"I can only hope. I can fix disobedience, but not incompetence," Dawn recognized the slight intonation in his dead calm voice, it was there last night. Zemfira has apparently heard it before as well and as Leshii rose from his chair she seemed to shrink into hers. "I thought saving a witch of your unique talents," he continued, "Was worth the weeks confined to these moldy ruins, but it appears I have miscalculated."

"It's her!" Zemfira screamed desperately, realizing things have gone terribly wrong, "Maybe something was planted in her head! There magic traces all over her mind! If I just.."

"Of course there are! She grew up in house full of witches and Slayers. I told you to scan her before she joined and you said there's no trace of Necromancers or the First. Were you lying then or are you lying now?"

There was complete silence. All conversations in the mess hall stopped and the gang fixed their attention on the fight at the main table.

"Look at her!" the witch thrust her little finger in Dawn's direction tears streaming down her cheeks as her tiny body shook with anger and fear, "She's hiding something, I'm telling you! Just give me a few hours with her and you'll know everything!"

"You stay from her," Leshii voice went suddenly low, "That's an order. You are confined to your quarters until you find and fix the breach in the containment spell. Right now, Zemfira."

The witch slowly pushed off her chair with a loud screeching sound as the metal legs scraped against the stone floor. Throwing Dawn one final glare she jumped off and run out. Leshii followed. The men returned to their meals except for Yozh whose plate was already empty. The fat man got off his chair and motioned Dawn over.

"The boss will be leaving on a reconnaissance mission in an hour," he said wiping his mouth with his hand, "If I were you, I'd decorate my room with plenty of crosses"

Dawn didn't linger. Grabbing a couple of hard boiled eggs and a yogurt she went to the library for her daily session with McClure.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Though the Englishman was doing his best to use her insights while keeping her on the periphery of the actually useful information Dawn managed to decipher quite a bit in the last two weeks. For one, what the First was seeking was anti-demon weapon created by some ancient wizards. There were four parts to the device and these were scattered among the temples of the order. The number of sites the First ransacked, however, was greater, perhaps It didn't know the actual locations. Strange indeed given that the memories of the dead wizards would be at the Creature's disposal. Transcribing all this information into British comedy jargon for her weekly letter to Buffy took Dawn the rest of the night. She was going over the draft for the third time when the door opened letting Zemfira inside. Instinctively Dawn jumped out of her chair and backed away. The door slowly closed behind the vampire, either of its own volition or nudged a bit telekinetically.

"Hey," Dawn did her best to sound cheerful and relaxed, "How's it going? Do you need any help? I'm not an expert, obviously, but if you think there's something I can do…"

"I'm not going back," Zemfira said grimly seemingly too tired to raise her voice much above a whisper, "you can't make me. Not you!" Her face turned and she lunged at the hated girl before her. Dawn was prepared. Eight years sharing a bedroom wall with the Slayer were worth a lot. She shifted her body and with slight nudge of her hands let the vampire's momentum carry her past and crash into the wall. As Zemfira fell Dawn dashed for the exit, but not fast enough.

"Adhaesi!" the witch hissed and the girl was thrown face first against the door, every part of her spread out body stuck to the wood. Dawn couldn't see her, but she felt the vampire walking up behind her. Small fingers brushed against her neck.

"Zemfira, just don't do anything stupid," she didn't know what she could say, but if she kept talking might stumble on something convincing, "I'm not trying to get rid of you. We can work together on this one.."

"Shut it," the vampire growled and Dawn felt her lips being pulled together as if tied with rubber band. The fingers on the back of her neck slowly traveled out front, nails scrapping ever so slightly against her throat, "I won't crawl the sewers for another eighty years feeding on rats. I'd rather he kills me!" The nails ripped through Dawn's cheek throwing her to the floor at the same time. Holding the left side of her bloodied face she sat at the open door listening to the putter-patter of the witch's little feet as she ran through the hall and down the stairs.

For the second night under the bed Dawn's gun was joined by a freshly made stake. The alarm, comprised of a few crosses painted on the plastic floor cover, didn't do much to help her sleep, much less the constant burning of her slashed cheek. As the sun hit her window she got up to face her day on that one and a half hour of disjointed nap time she was able to scrounge. The water she brought in last evening was all bloody from cleaning the wound which meant another trip to the water station down the hall.

"Dawn," Leshii called out from behind. Figures he'll be one she'd run into at five in the morning.

"Good morning, to you, too," Dawn answered trying slip back into her room, but Leshii stopped her by putting a hand on her shoulder.

"You are injured"

This was almost too easy. Just say what happened and she probably will never have to worry about Zemfira again.

"It's nothing," she replied surprising herself, "How was your mission? Got the list of covens narrowed down yet?"

Her attempt at changing the subject went nowhere. Leshii turned the girl around and tilted her face for a better look at the bandage work. With both of her hands holding a tub of water there was nothing she could do stop him.

"It's no big deal," Dawn continued to cover, "Just cut myself. Shaving" What? "Extensive facial hair. It's kind of embarrassing, so I do my best to hide it." Oh, my God, just stop talking! But the words kept pouring out of her mouth paying no heed to screaming in her head. "I wax, naturally, but I kind of run out so had to resort to a razor. I'm not good with razors. They say a bit of growth means the girl is passionate," she added meekly.

Without answering Leshii simply ripped off the bandages revealing three deep parallel slashes. Dawn could feel his breathing speed up just a tad.

"Get inside and stay there until I get you," he said nudging her into her room.

"It's nothing, really. She was just blowing off a little steam, it's no big deal," she rattled out as she run inside placing the tub on the dresser and rushing back out, but the door was closed in front of her, the lock clicked. Dawn kept pulling on the handle in disbelief. The door had no deadbolt on the inside and since she was never given a key she assumed the key hole was purely ornamental; she was wrong again.

Leshii's steps echoed measurably in the dungeon as he descended the stone steps. Zemfira could hear him coming from the moment he opened the door, no doubt. Still she sat unmoving with her back turned, staring into a large brass mirror in front of her, until a reflection finally filled the blankness.

"New set?" she inquired quietly.

"I put it together some time ago," Leshii answered setting his briefcase a wooden table nearby, "I was looking forward to an opportunity to see how much I learned. It was a mistake of you to test me in this way," he added flipping open the cover. The implements glimmered in the torch light. Leshii took out a gag ball with lever straps and walked up to the witch.

"You won't need it. I won't scream," she spoke even quieter.

"Yes, this time you will"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For the last three hours Dawn was trying to pick the lock with various combinations of pins, a knife, and a nail filer without success. Her enthusiasm waned some time ago, but she kept at it out of sheer stubbornness.

"Not as easy as they make it look in the pictures, is it?"

Dawn turned to see Spike sitting on her bed. The blonde vampire was wearing his usual leather duster and a sneer.

"Not all of us have a thousand lifetimes worth of lock picking experience," Dawn parried, continuing her struggles.

"I wouldn't say a thousand, but I took care of more than a few of these buggers in my day."

"Right, still with the role playing," Dawn smirked, "Poor choice though. Spike was a lousy lock picker."

"Is that right?"

"Buffy's twentieth birthday, remember? We sneaked to break into the Magic Box. Took him forever to get the door open."

"I'm not surprised you remember. That was some night. You thought they were keeping secrets from you and you got your hands on Giles' diary. You were lousy at cursive so I got to be the one to tell you how your entire life was one giant illusion. That's a lot for a fourteen year old to take."

"I recovered," Dawn was starting to get angry.

"Perhaps, but you didn't forget. Every minute of that night has been seared into your brain."

"That's right, including Spike's lousy lock-picking"

The vampire smirked.

"After so many break-ins Giles didn't skimp on the quality. It was a tricky lock and I picked it in twelve minutes; and you watched me every second of it."

Dawn paused. She took everything out of the keyhole, then placed a knife blade inside, then a nail filer. She put both of the pins together and jiggled the upper area of the hole. A click followed.

"Son of the bitch!" Dawn turned around, but the room was empty. Why would the First want her to get out? It didn't matter now. Dawn run through the labyrinth of castle corridors and stairwells as fast as she could. Zemfira's room was empty. There was blood all over the floor, but whether it was hers or her victims' was impossible to tell. Leshii's room upstairs was empty as well. Thoroughly exhausted from sprinting up and down the stairs Dawn finally staggered into the mess hall hoping to run into someone with information. Judging from the hateful looks directed at her they appeared to be well informed indeed.

"Well I'm looking at it and I'm not getting it," Bones spoke as he stared the girl down, "Must be the pussy cause it's sure not the face."

"Simmer down," Yozh tried to run interference.

"Or what? I'll be next? That's fucked! I shot my bitch between the eyes when I had to choose and now one of us gets the shaft because of his?" The grumbling of rest of the table seemed to concur with Bones' position.

"Hey, the man is a man, like any other man," Yozh raised his voice slightly trying to take reigns of the suddenly unruly team, "Pussy fever happens to the best of us. It's temporary and it's not his fault."

"No, it is my fault," they all turned to see Leshii. He must have slipped in unnoticed through the back entrance, "I have allowed this to happen," he continued walking up the suddenly mute men, "It's a long, hard mission. 'So what if they talk?' I thought, 'they are just blowing off some steam.' And then the stupid shit starts. They go on benders, they start grabbing whores off the streets. 'It's okay,' I thought, 'They are veterans, they get the job done, they know where the line is' Except they don't and the next thing I know my direct order is disobeyed. Zemfira lives. She lives because it is my fault for allowing this feeling of permissiveness to fester. She thought she could get away with it. It was logical for her to think that the way I let things be and I don't punish logic. Instead I educated her. When she recovers she will be a new, better person. Her 're-birth' shall be the symbol of the re-birth of discipline and professionalism that made this organization so great. Qualities I will enforce now at every opportunity. There will be no more talking shit behind my back," as he spoke his hand darted towards Bones, grabbing his lips for a mere second and letting go. The gangster made a loud, guttural sound, grubbing hold of his mouth with both hands as blood poured out. Leshii took no notice and stepped in front of Dawn, "And when I tell you to stay in your room, you stay in your fucking room!" She barely saw his fist as it flew into her face, knocking her head against the wall. As Dawn collapsed face first on the floor Leshii stepped over her unconscious body and disappeared out the door.

"Is she dead?" inquired a gray haired gangster inexplicably nicknamed Bob.

"She's not moving," Yozh replied looking over at the girl.

"So much for the power of pussy," said Bob and downed a shot of vodka

"Like I told you, never underestimate that man," said Yozh and took a shot of his own.

"He almost cut my lips off," mumbled Bones spitting blood into his coffee cup.

"Serves you right," Bob replied grimly.

"Well it may serve him right, but what about poor Rooster over there?" Yozh pointed to youngest man in the corner, "He'd have to find someone else to suck his cock and he didn't do nothing!"

The gang broke into laughter, but quickly stopped at the strange bubbling noise coming from the floor. They stood up and looked over at Dawn. She has managed to turn herself over. Blood was gushing from her smashed nose and into her mouth. She was oddly shaking and coughing and it took Yozh a few seconds to realize that what she was doing was laughing.

"You, crazy bitch," Yozh cackled himself shaking his head. He sat down next to the girl and carefully examined her injures. "You are way fucked up, girl. Let's get you to the doctor." He carefully picked her up making sure her head held steady against his shoulder and walked out.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tick-Tack. Before he left her bedroom, Dawn asked Yozh to move the clock from the nightstand to the dresser so she could see it without moving her head. Watching the hands move round and round gave her something to do. The pain and the painkillers have combined to create a strange fog in her head that rendered her unable to form any coherent thoughts. If she was to stay awake she needed some kind of external simulation. Any kind except for Leshii in her doorway would do.

"How severe are your injuries?"

"Broken nose, fractured cheekbone, orbital bone, slight concussion," Dawn run down the already composed list, "You should be proud, that's as much damage as anyone could do with a single punch."

"I could have killed you if I wanted to."

The tread marks from Zemfira's claws made any smile related expression extremely painful, but she couldn't help the smirk.

"You're right, I'm sorry. It was very nice of you not to."

"It was for your own good. You heard them. You are indeed valuable to me, Dawn, and I would hate to loose you because someone may overestimate that value."

The fury stoked by his usual measured lecturing was burning up the fog in her head.

"I saw what you did to Zemfira. At least I think it was Zemfira, it was really hard to tell. Was that for her own good, too?"

"Yes. The damage from her jealousy was beginning to surpass her usefulness. If I didn't have a way of correcting her behavior I would have had to destroy her."

"So what you were actually doing was saving her life?"

"That's right"

The pain shot and radiated through her body with every chuckle, but Dawn just kept laughing.

"I didn't think I was being funny."

"You're not," the girl answered, her tone suddenly grim. "You're being scary. You are the scariest thing I've seen in my entire life and that says a lot. You seem to have such a good grasp on how other people will react, so have you ever considered that one day Stefka just might kill herself rather than continue being your excuse to inflict death and torture on the world around her?"

"What I wanted to tell you," Leshii said after a slight pause, "is that Zemfira is weak and her protection spell, however effective it was, will cease to function completely soon. Watch who you talk to and what you say."

The door closed and Dawn was alone once again, but only for a second. A vision of Buffy grinning ear to ear was lying next to her now.

"Talk about a lethal body blow!" she exclaimed excitedly, "You certainly handed him his balls on a platter. You were always such a good judge of character, so good at reading people, their thoughts, their moods. Just so you can hit right where it hurts when they least expect it. How could anybody not be proud of such a sister? How could you not love her?"

"Don't pay any attention to It, Dawn" came a voice from the other side of the bed. Standing over her was Tara. "What does It know?" she spoke softly staring at the girl lovingly, "What could it possibly know of feelings It never had? All those memories…What's a picture of a smile to a person who never laughed? It's just an illusion, Dawn, and It's insights, It's 'all knowing' is no less an illusion than Its form."

"Okay, " Dawn responded slowly, taking everything in, "This is definitely new. There's definitely a lot of thought and effort being put into this. Unfortunately after the concussion, the vicodin, and the caffeine it's all pretty much a big waste. I'm not objecting, this is just a disclaimer I feel I owe given the high production values. Actually, since I am not allowed to fall asleep I would sincerely appreciate if you keep talking, even if I don't answer. Would you? I'll owe you a solid," she suddenly burst into loud drunken laughter, "Get it? 'Solid'?" she poked the ethereal Buffy next to her who looked extremely annoyed now, "Sorry. So you were saying something about...something?"

She played it perfectly. Leshii saw her pour her drinks out at the club that other time, but it's doubtful the First knows what drugs she took and certainly not how they affect her. That Buffy illusion was created by the Creature she had no doubt, but what about Tara? Was she, too, part of the act? She and the other visitors she had in the last few months had a very different vibe to them. Is it only a trick? What if Zemfira was right all along, what if her spell held up just fine until Leshii tortured her into oblivion? They all laughed at Dasha's joke about distinguishing the First from real ghosts, but now it couldn't be more pertinent. Then again it could be something much simpler. The same tumor that killed her mother is now compressing a bunch of neurons in her brain. Or it could be she has just gone insane without the dying part. Wouldn't that be a relief? She smirked to herself and drifted, just barely keeping on the side of consciousness.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They tumbled out of the kitchen and into the living room never breaking the kiss. Narrowly avoiding tripping on the coffee table they were about to collapse on to their target when Buffy pulled out at the last moment.

"No, not the chair," she gasped catching her breath.

"I like the chair," Mortimer countered, "We haven't done it on this chair yet."

"We can't, Willow loves the comfy chair"

"Then the chair shall remain faithful to its beloved. The couch again?"

"Yes, the slutty couch," Buffy quipped dipping in for another long kiss. They fell onto the aforementioned furniture piece and writhed out of their clothes.

"Wait, what was that?" Buffy stopped abruptly.

"Uhm…That's my penis. I believe you've met."

"No, I think someone just opened and quickly closed the door."

"Probably Willow checking in on her comfy chair"

"Willow is still in sulking mode. She only comes home when I'm out or asleep."

"Well, there you go," Mortimer tried to pull his lover back in, "She saw you were still in and left."

"Willow doesn't need to see, she always knows where I am" Buffy countered grabbing her top off the other end of the couch. When she bend down to grab her jeans off the floor, the Immortal leaned over and playfully bit her bare cheek.

"No biting off my butt, there's not much there to begin with," she giggled and rushed out not bothering with the shoes. There was definitely someone running down the stairs. She could hear the heels clanking against the stone steps about a floor down. Jumping into the stairwell she flew down almost two stories before grabbing on to the rails and pulling herself onto the staircase just ahead of her target.

"I didn't see anything I swear!" Andrew squealed as Buffy suddenly appeared in front of him.

"Yeah, right," she scoffed in a deliberately menacing way, "What are you doing here, Andrew?"

"Mr. Giles located a few rare texts for Mr. Parreli's research. He wanted me to courier"

"No, what are you doing at my apartment and with my keys?"

"Willow gave them to me. I asked if I could crash at your place and she said 'yes'"

"Why can't you stay at the dorms? Did the girls throw you out for peeping?"

"It wasn't on purpose! And I don't like the dorms. The girls keep pulling pranks on me. Last time they put toothpaste on my face when I slept and put my hand in warm water. I wish I could graduate sooner, be an actual Watcher."

"You think it will change anything?"

"They don't do these things to Mr. Parreli"

"Parreli is seventy five," Buffy smirked, "They don't need to put his hand in warm water," she sighed and turned the boy around by the shoulder, "Fine, let's go upstairs."

Inside Mortimer, already dressed, was finishing up the bow on his right shoe.

"I take it we are moving the party elsewhere." He stated as they entered, "Andrew"

"Mortimer," the teen returned the greeting with a slight nod.

"It's getting to be dinner time anyway," Buffy shrugged, "Nothing fancy, though. Someplace small, with good pesto. Then we can go to that club with green lamps. I feel like green for some reason"

"It's spring," said Mortimer getting Buffy's purse from the kitchen.

"It's middle of May," she replied not quite intelligibly as she applied her lipstick at the dress mirror next to the door. "Shouldn't I be all springed out by now?"

"You have a spring type personality. I think it's wonderful"

"You turn everything I say into a compliment. It's getting old," Buffy's jab was clearly insincere. In fact this was her favorite quality in her boyfriend and she didn't think she would ever tire of it. The smile on her face said as much.

"There are spare sheets and pillows in the closet in Willow's room and food in the fridge," Buffy shouted last minute instructions from the doorway, "But don't touch the gelato!"

As door shut behind the fluttering couple Andrew plunked himself on the couch, putting his boots up on the coffee table. With the most satisfied smile he took out his cell and texted: "In position. Coast is clear" "And with two hours to spare, " he added out loud, "Agent Wells you are indeed a marvel of efficiency and wit"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy was never the type to simply follow someone's lead without question, yet she has found herself doing just that with Mortimer more times than she could count. Only a few short minutes ago she let herself be whisked away through the rear entrance of the club without so much as a word of explanation. Not until they were almost a block down the alley did she finally let her curiosity run.

"So who were they?"

"What do you mean?" Mortimer took a weak shot at deflection.

"The big scuffle at the counter. Please don't tell me it had nothing to do with the sudden getaway"

"You are right, there were some people there I didn't want to deal with right now."

"Wow," Buffy was slightly taken aback by the intonation in his voice, "You are actually concerned. What did they want?"

"Something that isn't theirs. It could have gotten ugly."

"Demons?"

"Vampires, actually. What?"

"Hello?" Buffy demonstratively waved her hands in front of his face, "Vampire Slayer, here! "

"It's your night off, I didn't want you bothered."

"How thoughtful. Except now they are going to go back to their vampire buddies and tell all about how they chased away a Slayer. You're totally ruining my European street cred! Come on, names, descriptions, residences."

"You really don't need to do this for me," Mortimer said as convincingly as he could.

"I want to. You do stuff for me all the time and I don't do anything nice for you"

"Oh, yes, you do"

"I mean normal stuff," she nudged him playfully in the shoulder, "Relationship stuff. You don't let me cook for you, at least let me kill for you. Come on, it will make us both feel better."

"My, you are worried about me, aren't you? Why?"

"What do you mean 'why'? You're my boyfriend, I care about you"

"'Care'", Mortimer repeated smiling, "That's more than 'like'"

"So it is," Buffy agreed quietly.

"Good. But you don't have to worry about me. You never have to worry about me, that's one of the big selling points of this relationship."

"So I'm a worrier. I'm a worrier warrior," she punned happily, "But not for no reason. You can't be killed, fine. There's other stuff. They can capture and torture you for, like, ever."

"Not really. If there's no way out I can just kill myself with a thought"

"Dying from thinking," she reiterated, "And I thought Xander was paranoid. What if you're unconscious?"

"Never. Even if I can't see or feel, I'm still aware."

It almost felt like a challenge.

"What if you don't know you've been captured?" she tried composing some more scenarios, "They can cast some kind of spell on you to think you're some place else"

"My consciousness is so tied to this reality that I can't escape it even through magic," Mortimer replied rather wistfully, "I can always tell what's real and what isn't. For example, I can tell there's been a reality shifting spell cast on you." Buffy didn't say anything but the look in her eyes was more than enough. "It's like a shadow," he continued, "Like there's another Buffy right behind you. I've seen it on your friend Willow, too, and that British teacher of yours, Rupert Giles, is it?"

"What about Dawn?" Buffy finally spoke, "What do you see on her?"

"Nothing. I can hardly see her at all. It's like looking at a sun. Blinding green light. She's the source of these shadows, isn't she?"

There was answer.

"It's alright. I haven't told anybody, and I won't. I won't ask anymore either. You'll tell me if you want to."

They walked on in silence, Buffy getting increasingly anxious.

"I'm sorry if I upset you, I won't broach this subject again, I promise," Mortimer squeezed her hand in a sign of reassurance, but she just blinked at him.

"If I seem upset it is because I've been trying to find a place to pee for the last forty minutes. Can we please get to a street with some life on it?"

"Actually, there's a small pub three buildings down that should still be open," the Immortal smiled and handed her a fistful of coins, "You'll need to order something though. I'll wait for you outside"

As soon as Buffy disappeared into the alley dive Mortimer whipped out his cell phone.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" he yelled as soon the other end was picked up. "You send both of her ex-boyfriends to get me now?... Bullshit! I know for a fact that Angel doesn't get any intel you don't approve of! …Or so you thought you break it first?... You just hold you end and I'll worry about holding mine!...No, I'll take care of them myself, but if you get in the way or if you pull another stunt like this, I'll show you what really happens when I decide to break a bargain!" Mortimer slammed the flip shut, took a few deep breaths, and dialed again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The knocking has woken her up even before Yozh's rowdy voice.

"Wake up, girl! You need to wake up right now!"

"Get lost," Dawn grumbled turning her back to the door,

"Wake up!" she felt his giant hand jerk her shoulder.

"Yes, wise guy, smart move; shake the girl recovering from a concussion," she muttered feeling the revolver under her pillow,

"You have ten minutes to wash up and get dressed. We are taking off for a mission immediately. Bring your gun and ammo."

Yozh walked out into the corridor and closed the door to let her change. Dawn turned onto her back and opened her eyes for good. Gun and ammo at four in the morning. Must be another eventful day coming.

The jeep took them to a makeshift runway near the castle. The gang spent the last three days getting it ready and the jet was there, revving up the engines. They took off as soon as Dawn and Yozh got in. Leshii was already there along with seven other men. The booths they had on the way to Peru were gone. The entire cabin was gutted. The gang crowded around Leshii who was looking over some blueprints. There were heavy guns piled around, several rocket launchers, and dozens of gas canisters.

"Come here," Leshii called out apparently addressing Dawn as the circle parted to let her through, "Our coven is located in a small town outside of Bath. Do you know anything about it?"

"Westbury?"

"That's right"

"It's where Willow had her rehab."

"And?"

"It's where _Willow_ had her rehab," Dawn repeated louder, "These are powerful witches. You don't want to mess with them."

"I don't want to mess with them. I just want to kill them. Have you been inside their compound?"

"You don't get it, do you?" Dawn's frustration was reflecting more than four hours of sleep,  
"You can't fight them with your guns! Even if you catch them by surprise you won't get them all and your magic immunity won't be worth much with a mountain being hurled at you! Let me call Buffy. If she tells them to back down, they'll listen. They practically work for the Council."

"My point exactly"

"Bad point! They are not hunting Zemfira on Buffy's orders. If you just…"

"You don't know it," Leshii cut her off, "You are assuming they are not following her orders. You are assuming she has the authority to make them stop. We have no way of finding out the full set of artifacts Austin retrieved from the grave. They can simply hand over Zemfira's personal affects to some other coven we don't know about and we'll be worse off than we are now."

"Well, if you didn't let Zemfira turn him into a drool machine you'd have that list!"

"I seriously doubt he would remember the exact number of beads in a necklace, but you are correct about one thing, at least. Direct assault on the compound is suicide. Long range surveillance indicate the witches conduct their sessions in the basement. Even if it isn't protected by force fields, according to the blueprints it's too deep to destroy with the explosives we have."

"Wouldn't a 'simple tactical nuclear device take care of the whole thing'?" Dawn mocked him.

Leshii gave her a short stare then pulled on a chord stretching across the cabin, retrieving the speaker phone attached to the other end.

"Put Zemfira on," he told the whoever picked up the line.

"What is it?" the girl's voice was meek and sickly.

"I recall you mentioning the attacks come at regular intervals. How often?"

"It used to be once a day," the witch replied, "But it's three times now. I think they sense my weakness. The anomaly still helps me evade them for now, but I can't keep this up forever."

"How long can you hold out if you engage?"

"Are you crazy?" Zemfira sounded frightened out of her wits, "I don't stand a chance; they'll slaughter me!"

"I know. How long can you hold out before they do?"

"It doesn't matter! It's a death spiral spell, once you are engaged you can't stop it until one side is dead, which means me!"

"I know, " Leshii repeated deliberately calm to compensate for the panic on the phone, "I need the witches occupied. How long can you hold out?"

There was no answer.

"Zemfira, listen to me. I will save your life, I promise. You have to trust me to keep my word. You saw what happened to you when you didn't trust my word? Trust me now."

"I could go seven or eight minutes when I was healthy," the witch finally answered. The vibrations of the speaker heightening the shaking of her voice, "I doubt I could do more than three now."

"Martin, are you there?"

"What can I do for you?" the Brit replied in his usual polite way that radiated smugness.

"I want you link with Zemfira and help her during the engagement."

"Pardon?" the casualness with which he was just ordered to his death took him completely by surprise, but McClure quickly recovered, "I'm always happy to help, but someone like me will be, but a blip in this battle of titans, not even worth this conversation."

"I need an extra thirty second margin. Your abilities are sufficient to provide that in my opinion. You have your orders"

"With all due respect, sir, my inclusion in this plan does not seem to justify the risks. I am rooting with all my heart for Zemfira's liberation and happy to do anything else to help, but putting all your eggs in one basket…"

"Martin," Leshii tersely put an end to his rant, "You are a very intelligent man and you always have a backup plan. I'm sure even as we speak you are trying to come up with some highly plausible story of why you weren't able to join in with Zemfira or how you did and yet miraculously escaped her fate, so I will make this very simple for you. I'm not interested in stories. I'm putting all my eggs in one basket. If Zemfira dies so do you, whether it's your fault or not. You can choose to help her and risk a quick death at the hands of the coven or you can choose to die by my hand, surely and slowly. In two hours I will call you to sync up our assault time. Doctor, please take Martin's personal phone. He's not to leave the infirmary until I say so. Use the men to fetch any text or artifacts that he or Zemfira requests," he added and hung up.

"Afraid Martin will call Buffy?"

Leshii looked up the smirking girl.

"He does have another choice that I didn't mention: sabotage our mission and ensure my death."

"Do you want my phone, too?"

"No," the Russian replied returning to the blueprints, "You are smarter than that"

"Is that why you brought me with, am I too smart for the good doctor to handle? Clearly I'm not smart enough to stop you from being stupid. Are you seriously basing this entire mission on your sprinting ability? Three and a half minutes to limp all the way across the compound and down into the basement. What happens if you trip?"

"He'll make it," Yozh called out of his corner, "In fact, I'll bet you five grand he does."

"If he doesn't you'll be too dead to pay me off, you asshole!" Dawn snapped at him bitterly.

"Never said you were stupid, just crazy," the fat man cackled.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They landed on a runway for crop dusters in the middle of some barley field. Three more men and two helicopters were waiting for them there. Bones was giving out last minute instructions as they buzzed into Westbury. Yozh must have been doing the same in the other chopper. Leshii and Dawn sat away from the huddle. His role in the coming assault was clear enough as was hers. She wasn't part of it. With his oversized sun glasses on, it was impossible to tell what Leshii was actually looking at, but Dawn was certain it was her. Trying to gauge her reaction, trying to anticipate her next move. She had no move. She felt completely drained unable to motivate herself to any kind of action, completely resigned to watch the events as they unfold.

It went quicker than she expected. They moved simultaneously from front and rear with Leshii bursting through the main entrance as gas canister shattered the glass windows. Dawn has never seen him run before. He shifted his body forward using his cane almost as a third leg. Like a giant grotesque insect he scattered across the wooden floor and disappeared within the plumes of smoke. The gangsters were not using the gas out of some desire to minimize casualties among the enemy. To shoot a witch you must see her and there are all kinds of ways she can avoid that, but gas does not care for illusions or invisibility. Almost any force field will protect you from a bullet, but to conjure one that can stop the tiny poisonous particles without stopping the air flow entirely was a skill beyond any of the young adepts. Still, some fought back. From outside the building Dawn could hear the sounds of crashes and see the flares of white light through the smoke as some of the witches apparently mistook the infrared goggles their attackers were wearing for night vision. The resistance was short lived. As the sounds of the fight died down a few single shots rang out.

Dawn entered as the gas dissipated. It was a large country estate made almost entirely of pine and oak. It began with a long corridor where the gangsters laid out their haul: fourteen bound girls. Leshii's men appeared to have been well couched as each girl had tape over her mouth and eyes, while the hands were bound not just at the wrists, but also at the fingers making even a slightest magical gesture impossible. Further on three bodies lay each with a single shot to the head. The talents and skills these teens must have been so proud of turned out to be their death sentence as Yozh saw them too dangerous to be taken prisoner. On the other side of the corridor Leshii emerged out of the basement entry way. His clothes were covered in dark spatter, while the bottom half of his cane turned entirely maroon with blood and gore. He walked up to Dawn stuffing his cell phone back into the inner pocket.

"From the doorway to the last witch in three minutes and twenty seconds," he announced as his eyes glazed over the prisoners, "With at least a minute to spare according to Zemfira. McClure has apparently pulled out all the stops. Fascinating how much of a difference proper motivation can make."

"What are you going to do with them?" Dawn asked getting mentally ready for another verbal engagement.

"It will take police in Bath another thirty five minutes to put together enough units and drive up here. I still have some work to do in the basement so I would like you to handle it."

"What?"

"You know there needs to be a message sent in instances such as these. Now you get to do it. I know it's only been theory up to this point," he continued taking in the girl's expression, "but do not worry. I expect to have at least ten minutes left when I'm finished. Should I find your approach deficient I'll still have time to shoot them all. It wouldn't be as original as I wish it would, but effective enough. I will leave you to it," with that he walked passed her out the ruined main entrance.

For a few moments Dawn stood paralyzed by the choice just inflicted upon her, but time was short.

"Bones," she called out and the thin man immediately obliged, clearly aware of her assignment, "Get these two and follow me, " she pointed to the eldest girl on the ground and the one closest to her. They headed for the office which according to the layout was on the ground floor to the left of the back entrance. Dawn walked in first, sitting down at the desk in front of the computer. The girls were pushed in next with Bones closing out the procession. Dawn nodded towards the elder of the two young witches and the wiry gangster ripped the tape off her mouth with a purposely jarring motion.

"I need access to student files. What are the passwords?"

The girl didn't answer. She was in her early teens, looking both scared and defiant at the same time as children often do. The younger was eleven, twelve at the most. She kept glancing at her senior classmate with the pleading look of terrified confusion. Until now the conversations around them, including the one between Dawn and Leshii were conducted in Russian. They didn't have the slightest idea of who their attackers were or what was coming.

"I want those passwords now!" Dawn raised her voice trying to scare the young witch, but with two thirds of her face covered by fresh scars and black bruises she was inspiring more pity than fear. The prisoner only seemed to straighten up and press her lips tighter together.

"I don't have time for this!" Dawn hissed angrily, the emotions inside her boiling over. "Hand!" she yelled at Bones in Russian. The gangster knew exactly what she meant. He tore off the tape binding the wrists of the younger girl, grabbed her hand and laid it flat on the table. As soon as he did Dawn grabbed the heavy wooden paperweight and in one sweeping motion slammed it down on the girl's fingers.

"The other one!" Her voice rising over the muffled sounds coming from the child's taped mouth. Bones obliged. Dawn stilled her hand in the air and looked at the elder girl who turned white as a ghost.

"User names and passwords. Now."

"Administrator. Gaia13Aet"

Dawn entered the letters as the young witch stuttered them out. She was in, the files clearly labeled right on the main Desktop.

"Take them back," she addressed the smirking gangster who seemed to be having a great time. "Tell Yozh to take inventory of prisoners. I want label with the name on each one, including the dead, and I want the list brought to me ASAP. Go."

Closing the door behind Bones she noticed Leshii going back down into the basement with what looked like an ice box and a chainsaw. She shook her head trying to knock the images of what that may mean out of her mind and sat back at the computer.

"What do you think you are doing?"

Dawn turned to see Tara standing behind her with a horrified look on her face.

"Are you actually picking which children you are going to kill?"

"What else do you expect me to do? If I don't, he'll kill them all," Dawn answered shaken by the vision before her.

"I expect you to try to save them!"

"There's eleven of them and one of me!"

"Then call for help"

Dawn looked over at the phone on the desk and picked up the receiver. As she expected the line was dead. This leaves her cell phone. That is the cell phone Leshii gave her. Did he block Buffy's number? Perhaps set up a silent alarm in case she betrays him? What about others, Willow's, Giles'? Even if he covered all the numbers she knew she could just call information and have them connect her to any random slayer, have her relay a message to Buffy. She took out the phone and flipped open the cover.

"You are not serious," Anya's voice was more disgusted than angry, "You have less than twenty two minutes. Even if you can get a hold of someone, and even if they can find Buffy and Willow, what kind of a rescue do you think they can put together? They'll get half the hostages killed and that's the best case scenario!"

"She's right," Dawn murmured, "It won't work; there's not enough time."

"You have to try," Tara's voice turned pleading, "You can't just sentence them to death!"

"Don't be stupid, Dawn, put away the phone," Anya commanded sternly.

"It's possible. Willow can teleport in, cast an instant anti gun spell; slayers will take care of the rest"

"You don't even know if there's an instant anti gun spell! Even if it does exist, it won't work on Leshii. The chances of this going right are infinitesimal. More likely you'll get everyone killed."

"I know that!" Dawn exclaimed exasperated, "But it's still a chance, I can't just ignore it!"

"So you don't. You take the number of lives you can save in each scenario and multiply it by the probability of the scenario succeeding. The one with the greatest number wins!"

"Expected value," Dawn mumbled looking up at Anya's satisfied face.

"Exactly!"

"Anya wouldn't know expected value, " Dawn rose off her chair and now stood at eye level with the apparition. "She may have been a wiz in arithmetic, but Statistics were not part of Middle Age curriculum."

"I did take a whole semester at Sunnydale High, if you recall" the ghostly figure countered, but Dawn just shook her head with an angry smile.

"Being a thousand years behind and still squeezing out a 'D' speaks volumes of Anya's intelligence, but no way would expected value be part of her active vocabulary. You are not her. And you are not Tara," she snapped at her second visitor. "What, the hell, are you?"

"This is not important, Dawn," Tara started softly

"Like hell it's not!"

"Alright, it is important," Anya acquiesced, "But you don't have time to figure this one out now. You have a decision to make."

"Well, if my decision is so important to you, how about you two just settle it between yourselves and let me know what you recommend!" Dawn plunked herself back into the chair and covering her head with her hands.

"I cannot," Tara shook her head.

"This is not how it works," added Anya.

"How what works? What is _this_?" Dawn was screaming now. Even with the door closed and the gang all the way down the hall they could probably hear her, but she wasn't thinking about that. What she was thinking that after so many close calls it finally happened: she has lost her mind.

"Please, Dawn," she heard Tara's voice whispering in her ear as she cowered on the desk refusing to open her eyes, "Do something!"

"Stop the hysterics and make a decision," added Anya sternly.

"Alright!" Dawn slammed her fist on the unpolished wood and lifted her head to face her ghosts. She was alone. Dawn glanced around the room then back on to the screen. Her head felt calm and clear. She pulled her chair forward and grabbed the mouse.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When she exited, the gang was all in anticipation. If she had to guess Yozh organized some kind of a wagering pool on what she'll decide to do. She handed him a printout.

"Break them out into these three groups," she said pointing to the girls still lying face down as she left them, bound and gagged, but now each had a crude name tag pinned to her back. "Stand them up, get the tape off their eyes," she added, "They need to see."

As Yozh and his men arranged the girls Dawn realized that she needed a speech. Some explanation. A few men spoke pretty good English, Leshii would certainly question them. What would he say? Something short, but thorough, no doubt, threatening, yet eloquent.

Ready. Dawn glazed over the three groups, trying deliberately to pay equal attention to each one. Assuming she interpreted the files correctly, the lone black girl in group two would be Olivia's niece. They've actually met once before, at Giles' engagement dinner. She probably doesn't remember, but she won't forget her now; none of them will.

"I say this without exaggeration," Dawn started trying hard to steady her voice, "What you will hear now are the most important words you have heard in your entire lives, perhaps will ever hear. Do not make a mistake of forgetting them," she paused for a deep breath, "Now, what you have witnessed today, what you are about to witness, are the consequences of an attack upon us. That it was unprovoked and undeclared is besides the point; any attack upon us will be dealt in the same manner: swiftly, decisively, and most importantly, comprehensively. It is our mission to eliminate not just the perpetrators, but the very motivation of their action. You will bear witness and pass on to others who may entertain the idea of following in the steps of your teachers and guardians that the extent of what they are willing to sacrifice is not for them to choose, but for us! Bear witness and remember!"

She turned abruptly and walked off; the left hand at her side flashing three fingers to Yozh. She was outside when the gunfire erupted and the screams followed. She wanted to drop to the ground, wretch out every last gram of her guts and die, but instead she marched steadily towards the helicopter where Leshii was loading his ice box.

"The wind carried some of your speech," he spoke as Dawn approached, "Sounded alright. What did you have to go with it? Well?" he added as the pause grew long.

"I've identified witches with the least number of family ties, specifically those with relatives killed during the assault," Dawn rattled out, each word tripping over the previous, "Which would make them likely candidates to seek revenge and in turn less likely to be avenged if killed. The others, with families intact would be more easily threatened into submission right now and in the future turning them into potential assets down the line."

"How many?"

Leshii watched the girl open her mouth, but the words seem to get stuck in her throat.

"How many did you kill, Dawn?"

"Six," she mouthed, "six," she repeated a little louder. Leshii didn't respond right away. He jumped down from the chopper and walked up to her, paused, then stepped behind her, gripping both of her shoulders.

"You are shaking," he spoke quietly into her left ear, "You are afraid I will not accept your sacrifice, but that is not what you should be frightened of. You see, if I kill them all now, you will rest easy tonight, soothing your failure with the thought that nothing you could have done would have stayed this madman's hand. But if I accept it, as I do, this momentary relief coming over you will give way to the inevitable realization. If six was enough then most likely five would have been as well, or four, or maybe even none. The only certain thing is children died today that didn't have to. They are gone because you and no one else has chosen to murder them," he let go of her and took a few steps towards the compound, "Saddle up!"

The gang poured out of the house and into the helicopters. As the rotors were ramping up faint sounds of police sirens could be heard at the foothills. The last one coming out was Yozh. He grabbed Dawn who was standing catatonic in front of the chopper into his arms and jumped in just as the helicopter slowly lifted off the ground.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The lounge at the Academy was shrouded in darkness. Giles abhorred mixing natural and electric lights so the curtains were drawn with a desk lamp providing just enough light to watch Robson shaking his head in disbelief.

"Air traffic control has confirmed," Giles seemed to be a picture of satisfaction, "Angel's plane lifted off early this morning. They've come and gone without Buffy ever knowing they were here or that Spike is even alive. A complete success you might say."

"Unbelievable. How could someone like Andrew pull this off right under the Slayer's nose?"

"Precisely because no one suspects him. The boy may appear to be a bumbling idiot, but in reality he is…well…less so." The phone ring interrupted their chuckle. "Hello, darling," Giles greeted the caller. The smile on his face froze then crashed, "Oh my... When? Yes, of course, I'll be there as soon as I can. Yes, I'm leaving right now, " his voice seemed to mirror the agitation on the other end as he flew across the room to the door. "What?" he froze in the entryway his face now deathly pale, "Is she sure? She must say nothing to the police! It's very important! She doesn't know who they were or what they wanted, do you understand? I'll be there within an hour!" He hang up and turned to Robson, "Get Kim, Parreli, and Lungren on the phone. Tell them Buffy has called an emergency Board meeting to be held two hours from now."

"This wasn't Buffy," the younger Watcher replied slightly confused.

"No"

"When did she call the meeting, then?"

"In about twenty seconds," Giles replied pressing speed dial one as he left the room.

1 From 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', 42 is the answer to the 'Ultimate Question of Life, Universe, and Everything'

2 Muslim version of hell

3 Willow is referring to the Deluge hypothesis proposed by Ryan and Pittman in 1997


	10. Chapter 10: FaceOff

**Chapter 10: Face-Off**

The artifact storage room was submerged into complete darkness except for the small narrow beam of Parreli's light-pointer that methodically traversed the edges of the giant beak in his hands. His progress was excruciatingly slow, but Stefka was pretty optimistic about the outcome. If it can slice through Oksana's tempered steel sword like a stick of butter what could possibly damage it? Still the spell called for a flawless extremity and if something was off they needed to know it now, before the rest of the flock migrates out of this dimension. The ceiling lights burst on full power seemingly turning up the volume of the intruder's steps.

"It's eight o'clock; we are all waiting for you," Buffy snapped not bothering to hide her agitation.

The old man put the beak down and glanced at his watch.

"Indeed. My apologies. Miss Bulanova has just returned with not one, but two Kario beaks; both in perfect condition," the corners of Parreli's wrinkled mouth drifted upwards in a rare smile as if to leave no doubt his reasons were more than worth some slight inconvenience, "If Dr. Owens is correct about the Tasmanian location of the shadow crystal we'll be just one ingredient away from turning the First Evil back to Its immaterial self"

"Good," the Slayer answered coldly, "Good job," she added with a slight nod to Stefka, "We need to go now"

She followed Buffy and Parreli out of the basement. The lack of enthusiasm to the success of her mission disturbed Stefka. "We are all waiting" must mean the other Board members. Something must have happened while she was away. The expression on Buffy's face has dissipated in her any desire to ask any questions now. She should find Samira; that girl always knows everything that's going on.

"You should come, too," Buffy said just as Stefka split from them at the exit.

"To the Board meeting?" she replied hesitantly, "What am I supposed to do?"

"You listen to what people say and if you know something about the subject that hasn't been said yet, you say it. Think you can handle it?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This was Stefka's second time in the Board room, but this time she was not alone. The chair at the far end of the oval table belonged to Buffy. Parreli sat closest to the entrance. Next to him was the astral projection of Huyan Kim. On his right was an empty chair followed by a stand with a twenty inch monitor featuring Xander's concerned face. Giles was next, on Buffy's left. On her other side sat a statuesque woman of about sixty with long braided white hair. Helga Ingden, Willows replacement for the second Wicca seat. Willow was also there, seated in a no-thrills chair behind Buffy, likely indicative of her unofficial adviser status. Stefka moved in her direction assuming her position is similar, but Buffy pointed to the second empty chair at the table in between Helga and Parreli.

"If I may, Buffy," Giles began as soon as everyone has taken their seats, "I would like to start by going over the points of the previous meeting just to make sure everyone is on the same page before we move forward." Taking the wavelike hand motion as a sign to proceed he opened his notebook and recited his list line by line. "We are in agreement that our goal is to bring Dawn Summers back to Rome as soon as possible. We are in agreement that Leshii is unlikely to relinquish custody peacefully and negotiations to that effect should not be attempted as it would eliminate the crucial advantage of a surprise attack. We are in agreement that removing Dawn by force would lead to a massive retaliation by Leshii which means the retrieval operation must also include his capture or execution. We are in agreement that due to Leshii's current location at the anomaly the likelihood of success of an immediate action is unacceptably low. We had agreed to adjourn for twelve hours to explore ways to counteract the anomaly or somehow entice Leshii to move to a different location," as he finished the last sentence Giles leaned back in his chair and took the handkerchief to his lenses.

"Well," Buffy spoke glancing around the room, "You know where I stand, but since a full frontal assault isn't everyone's cup of tea, let's hear any 'enticing' ideas first." She seemed to have expected the silence that followed, but just as she opened her mouth to speak again, Parreli cleared his throat loudly indicating a forthcoming response.

"I have found myself fighting on the wrong side when the war last came to this country, " the old man started, "so I do not like to bring it up needlessly. Still, my experience in those gun battles have convinced me that even if we were to find a way around the anomaly, storming a heavily defended castle will cost us dearly in young blood and I do not wish to see it again. I believe I have found a scenario which will let us avoid these casualties and I urge the Board to consider it."

"We are all happy to listen to any alternatives," Buffy replied, but her voice was full of skepticism.

"We know Leshii wants the second half of the amulet, but he has made no attempt to retrieve it by force for the same reason we believe he would not trade Dawn: the foundation of his enterprise, his reputation for fairness to his clients and men, would be irreparably damaged. However, if we were to break our agreement first, if he were to believe that the exchange of the amulet for the girl is in fact a trap we set for him, he's likely to jump at the opportunity, accept our offer and lay a trap of his own."

"And since we are the ones who leaked the information," Buffy picked up the thread, "We can anticipate his counter measures and two, three, quadruple-cross him," she finished folding her fingers.

"How would we make sure he knows what we want him to know?" Giles inquired of his fellow watcher.

"Didn't Dawn say we have a spy somewhere in this office?" Xander answered in his stead, "If we just start blabbing it about, it'll get to him."

"I'm afraid this approach is full of risk," Parreli responded, "Miss Summers may be wrong in her conclusions or the spy may not be in a high enough position. If Leshii hears this information from someone he wouldn't expect to have it he may doubt its authenticity"

"One of us would be authentic," said Buffy, "How about you? You can claim to be motivated by Watcher dissatisfaction with a Slayer running the Council; ask him to off me." The half-smile on Buffy's face was even more poignant than the words accompanied it, but the old man didn't seem to notice.

"Under different circumstances I would be an ideal candidate, but Leshii has a powerful witch at his disposal. If she were to read my mind I could not stop her."

"I could," Willow piped in from her corner, "but what's my motivation? She snores?"

"I snore?" Buffy turned to her, horrified

"Sometimes. Just a bit, it's no biggie"

"Mrs. Ingden, Mr. Kim," Giles interrupted the sidebar, "will you be able help us?"

"From what I know of the vampire," the witch answered first, "I'm hesitant to match my skills with hers"

"I'm afraid just like Miss Rosenberg I lack a motive," the wizard followed

"How about money? What?" Buffy was taken aback by Kim's chuckle, "Are you above material possessions?"

"Not at all, " Kim shook his long narrow beard, "That is why my family owns seven percent of Hyundai Motor"

"Your plan seems to have developed a serious flaw," she addressed Parreli now whose slow descent back into the chair seemed to illustrate the expression on his face, "That's alright, it was a good try; good thinking out of the box. Willow, what have you got for me on this anomaly thingie?"

"There's been some progress and some dead ends. Mr. Kim and I were able to conjure an artifact that can be used to refocus magic, but it will only work from the inside. I've been wracking my brain, but I can't come up with a way to get it in without tripping Zemfira's alarms. It has to stay in place for at least two hours to be effective, but they are bound to locate and destroy it faster than that."

"Trojan horse," Buffy replied. "Get Leshii to bring it inside himself. Say a person tries to break in, he would have to bring him in for questioning. That can easily take two hours."

"Two hours of torture, Buffy," Giles clarified, "possibly execution."

"Will the amulet work inside a dead body?" the Slayer turned to Willow. The witch nodded. "Then we are good."

"We are?" Giles stared at the girl.

"Sure. I just happen to know someone who doesn't a mind a little torture and an occasional death. So the artifact is in. What's next?"

"After two hours I'll be able to locate Dawn," Willow answered, "I'll teleport in, get her out and you can start the assault."

"I looked over the maps Faith drew as well as overhead satellite shots," Xander's voice boomed from the speakers, "Since you won't be able to get Leshii's location you'll need to cover all exits. That's at least twenty five slayers, preferably thirty."

"Rome special ops has twelve slayers," Buffy replied pensively, "How many others do you think are trained enough?" she addressed Stefka, but the girl was too shell shocked by the topic of the meeting to answer promptly.

"You'll need at least one other team," Willow responded first, "Rio has the best special ops. No offense," she hastily turning in Stefka's direction.

"This needs to look like a run of the mill cross-team training exercise," Xander added, "In case there really is a spy."

"Good idea," Buffy agreed,"No one, but Kennedy will know the actual assignment until the last moment. We can break up the drills, too, so it doesn't resemble anything like a castle. Stefka, coordinate with Kennedy on the logistics. Our Trojan horse is out of town until Thursday which should give us at least two full days of practice. Questions, comments?"

"Miss Rosenberg and I must perfect the artifact," answered the wizard. His astral projection was beginning to fade. He, too, considered the meeting all but over.

"It's the size of six-pack now," Willow added, "I'm assuming you need it smaller."

"Small enough to swallow. Can you do that?"

"Pretty sure," the redhead nodded.

"In that case, thank you, everyone, for your contribution. Let's move on this." Buffy jumped off her chair and was the first to exit, switching off computerized Xander as she passed by. Having not said a single word through the meeting Stefka left the room last.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dawn was drifting to sleep for the second time that afternoon when the creaking door hinges snapped her fully awake. Leshii stood in the doorway.

"You haven't spent more than ten minutes outside of this room in three days. Isn't it about time you returned to your duties?" As he stepped inside her bedroom Dawn lunged across the bed for the revolver on the nightstand.

"Don't you touch me!" she screamed pointing the barrel square at his chest. Leshii stopped, examining the girl and the gun pointed at him.

"It was never my intention to hurt you, Dawn," his voice was calm and somewhat quieter than usual, "I simply wanted to continue the education you've come here to receive. The assignment I gave you was meant to help you understand the value of human life. I believe your confusion on the matter severely dampens your effectiveness." There was no response except for Dawn's left hand grabbing the wrist of her right for additional support. The gun was not coming down.

"You've taken a life before," Leshii proceeded, "But never what you call 'an innocent life', not on purpose. What you need to understand is that there's no difference. The value of a human life is either infinite or finite. Heroes hold life sacred, but you have long ago chosen another path. You have accepted that some lives may be taken while others must be. More importantly you installed yourself as the arbitrator on the matter. In so doing you have accepted the second axiom: the value of a human life is subjective. So what are the lives of those little witches worth? For me, the only life with intrinsic value is that of my sister. The rest, including mine, are derivative. Those who make her world better, like you, are to be protected. Those who threaten it, like the First, are to be destroyed. The rest, the vast majority, are resources, readily used, but not wasted unnecessarily. I imagine your value system is more complicated than mine, but in the end you, too, strive to create a better reality from your point of view. Everyone is. Even those who claim to want to destroy the world simply want to create a different one. How did these children fit into your ideal? Two days ago you didn't know they existed, and now they don't. What has changed then? Let's say you did manage to spare a few more lives. How would that make any difference? Your decision may not have been optimal, but what is the actual harm? Compare that to the harm your emotional paralysis has inflicted on your goals with these days of wallowing in bed. You, and no one else, is the judge of everything you do. Do not let animal instincts or societal prejudices keep you from what truly matters. This is the most important lesson I have to teach."

"Are you done?" Dawn finally spoke in low hoarse tone.

"Yes"

"Then get, the hell, out of my room"

Without a word Leshii turned walked out, closing the door behind him. Too tired to be surprised or relieved Dawn rolled back on her side and closed her eyes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The dungeon was shrouded in total darkness save for a lone torch hanging over a wooden chair at the east wall. Leshii sat down and placed his cane on the stone floor with a barely audible clank. At once Zemfira emerged out of the surrounding void. The tiny vampire crawled over on all fours and curled up at the foot of the chair. Taking his hand off the armrest Leshii extended it towards the girl. Zemfira hastily pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and bit down a few inches above the wrist. A few minutes passed with only light slurping sound echoing in the stone chambers. Suddenly Leshii reached out with his right and grabbing Zemfira by her hair lifted her face to meet his.

"You are healing nicely," he said after a momentary examination.

"It's not hard. My body is nourished, my enemies are vanquished. The pitiful sobs from upstairs help, too," a smile stretched the blood covered lips, "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing. She is doing it to herself."

They fell quiet once more as Zemfira returned to her medicine.

"Have you examined the witches?"

"Yes, " the vampire answered licking the puncture wounds, "But the matron's brain was too rotten to read. It's not your fault, " she added quickly, "Seems she was a bit of a hypocrite, using life extension spells. As soon as her consciousness left her body decomposition was almost instant. I suppose if you dropped her into the freezer alive..."

"What about the others?"

"I was able to recover some memories. They believed they were taking their orders from the Slayer Council, but only the matron had direct contact."

"We have traced several calls in their phone records to cellular towers in Rome, but they were all prepaid phones, already disconnected. This was not an officially sanctioned mission. Someone on the Council is playing their own game."

Zemfira looked up at Leshii as he paused in thought.

"Two more days and I'll be fully recovered. We can leave this place. I will come with you to Rome to settle this. I will go with you to Istanbul or wherever the First is. I will go wherever you ask me to."

"No. We shall stay here and wait."

"Wait for what?"

"Something"

The vampire let go of his hand and rose to her feet. With her eyes opened wide in a mixture of fear and anger she grabbed hold of the arm rests and leaned in

"What did you do?"

"Nothing that wouldn't have happened anyway"

"So you just hurried things along?" she yelped pushing herself off the chair and paced around nervously, "Did you really think you could keep this from me forever? You've trained the good doctor to hide his thoughts well, but thirty six hours in the same room... He's only human and he is so worried. Seventy percent chance of a massive coronary in the next two years, ninety-six in the next five. You can't play for time when you don't have it; so you are playing to win, aren't you?"

Leshii didn't answer seemingly lost in thought, which drove Zemfira's frustration sky high.

"You can't win!" she screamed into his face trying to incite some kind of a reaction.

"I have no other choice"

"Yes, you do. I can give you all the time you need," the vampire almost whispered now into the right ear prosthesis placing her hand over his left breast, "It can't break if it doesn't beat."

"You told me once that my soul is the source of my magic immunity which means it cannot be restored once it leaves the body. On its own, the vampire demon is driven by massive jealousy and inferiority complexes seeking to both distance itself from and punish the original occupant of its body, usually by murdering family and friends. Instead of helping my sister I would create her another powerful enemy."

"That's not always true"

"Did you not kill your family?"

"I burned them alive, but I also heard that sometimes things go differently. If your love is strong enough it will imprint upon the demon through your memories."

"I cannot take the risk"

"In three centuries of my life no human or demon could match the depth and darkness of your mind," Zemfira gently stroked his cheek with her delicate fingers, "That's why I fell in love with you, but compared to the First you are an insect! Whatever you think is going on, whatever you are waiting for, you will not be ready when it comes, believe me!"

"The topic is closed," Leshii shoved the girl off him then lifted her into the air by her throat as she tried to get up, "My decision is made and if you ever try to take the initiative with your suggestion there's no word for what I will put you through." Throwing Zemfira to the floor he sat himself in the chair once more and extended his left arm. Obediently the vampire crawled back to her place and closed her mouth over his wrist.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The butler didn't let her in this time. It seemed that Mortimer let go all of his staff for the day. In fact if he hasn't buzzed her in, Buffy would think there was no one inside at all. The house was dark except for the light in the guest room. The Immortal was in one of two armchairs in front of the fire place. Despite it being a warm spring night it roared at full power highlighting Mortimer's grim expression.

"You don't look happy to see me," she said sitting down across from him.

"I don't want to tell you 'no'."

"'No' to what?"

"Whatever it is you need me to do."

"If you don't know what it is, how can you say 'no'?" Buffy tried to smile, but it didn't come out right. Something was very wrong.

"Ask me then"

"Dawn is in danger and I'm getting her back. We have a plan, a pretty good plan. You are an important part of it."

"I can't help you," Mortimer responded in the same somber tone, but that was not the answer she came for.

"Yes, you can."

There was momentary silence and for the first time since they met Buffy felt it was a very old man sitting in front of her.

"You are right," he answered tiredly, "I _won't_ help you. I've skirted the line for you for as long as I could, but I won't step over it, I'm sorry."

"No, you don't get to just say 'no'! I've met your kind before, all mighty, holier than thou, higher beings with their higher purpose, balance of power, good and evil, non-interference bullshit! There is no purpose higher than family! There's no power stronger than love! I am bringing Dawn home, and if you love me, if you love me just one tenth of how much you keep saying you love, then you will do this for me!"

"How could I not love you?" Mortimer smiled sadly at the furious girl standing over him, "Even in anger you are holding me up to be a better person than I am. Choosing duty over love, there's at least some honor in that."

"I don't understand"

"Unfortunately I do. You see, in my endless eternity I have never grown tired of this life and its pleasures, but sometimes I would envy the dying; those who die for a cause. To have something, to hold something so dear. You were right before: I never risked, never sacrificed. I never felt the need, but I wanted to. I wanted to very much. Naturally, I turned to what I know best. I've set out to find a woman, one who could unlock all that courage, all that selflessness inside me. I imagined the things I would do for her, for love. I watched you for years. I saw the men around you, I saw what you made them into, and I knew that you were the one. My choice was perfect, but blatantly futile You swung open the doors of that vault, ripped them off the hinges, only there's nothing inside. I'm not sure if there ever was. I think I love you. My feelings for you go far deeper than anything I felt before, deeper, I think, than they ever will. Still, I won't help you. I won't help you because I'm afraid. Because the consequences of my actions will rule over me long after your bones crumble into dust. And it just isn't worth it. You are not worth that much to me."

"It's not Leshii you are afraid of, " Buffy spoke after a long silence. She wasn't angry anymore, just a little tired. "Who is it then, the First? There's something else going on, isn't there? Please, tell me what it is, Mortimer. Will you at least do that for me?"

The Immortal did not answer. Persistent and unfocused his stare went right through her as if trying to see something a long, long time ago. Answer not forthcoming, she turned and walked out of this house never to return. Mortimer didn't move, not even when the door opened and closed a second time. This time to let someone in. A man walked inside and sat in the chair formerly occupied by Buffy. He was unshaven, slightly hunched over, dressed in an old dirty windbreaker.

"I didn't want this," the man spoke, "I warned you. I tried to end it for you, but you wanted to push it as far as it would go. I am glad at least that when things came to a head you made the right choice. You've caused me much aggravation, little brother. What for, for this? You should see the look in your eyes."

"What's going to happen to her?" Mortimer asked.

"I don't know"

The Immortal finally looked at the visitor, rage clearly boiling over inside him.

"Don't, don't you dare..."

"I'm not lying. I honestly don't know. She has served her purpose. Her upcoming life or death does not affect my plans in any significant way, so I haven't given it much thought." He stood up, stepped over to the chair across and gave Mortimer's shoulder a friendly squeeze, "You are the only variable I can never fully account for, you know. Now everything will go as it should. Finally, after so many false starts, I will restore what is ours by right"

The Immortal chuckled. His chuckle quickly grew into a prolonged, uproarious laughter.

"Do you even understand why I turned Buffy down?" he asked momentarily gaining control over his sudden merriment.

"You are afraid of what I would do to you, that's what you told her."

"I'm not afraid of you; I'm afraid of becoming you! A war between us cannot be won and pouring eternal life into a task impossible to accomplish clearly causes one to become a pathetic, joyless prick."

The visitor's face turned red with anger, but not at the insult.

"It is not impossible! Nothing is impossible for me! You'll see! You'll see very soon!" He rushed out of the mansion, the sound of the slamming door barely registering over Mortimer's continuing laughter.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The clubhouse cafeteria was created by merging four smaller rooms on the third floor. Most of it was taken up by five round tables that could fit up to eight girls each, if called upon. There were four refrigerators, three microwaves, and a food station which was being filled in anticipation of the next wave of customers. Meals were a catered affair at the Slayer school and due to limited sitting the girls were divided up into three shifts. Conveniently the early lunch one coincided with breakfast Rio time. The visitors from the southwest were wrapping up their meals next to Dasha's table who was enjoying her new favorite desert: strawberries and Stolichnaya. The perfect combination of a soft, sweet texture and a good disinfectant for her new tongue stud. Taking another bite of the large red berry she watched with visible pleasure as Samira passed through to what appeared to be a torrent of Spanish and Portuguese swears.

"You just make friends wherever you go, don't you?" she snickered as the Persian girl took the seat next to her.

"TVs in their rooms are down, too, with an explanation note, no less. That vindictive bitch!" Samira pulled back her perfect hair from her forehead ever so slightly trying to calm down.

"She's a tyrant, alright. I mean, what decent person wouldn't allow people to get high and wasted in their place of work?"

"You are drinking vodka right in front of me, you weirdo!"

"Exactly," Dasha nodded, the smile never leaving her face, "I, an off duty individual over the age of sixteen, am consuming an alcoholic beverage on the cafeteria premises and nowhere outside of it."

"'A beverage'? It's barely noon and you are already a quarter of a way through the bottle!"

"Alcoholism is a disease," Dasha stated in a pretentiously serious tone. "I happen to be genetically predisposed. My stepdad drinks two bottles a day."

"Seriously?" Samira furrowed her brow. "That's horrible. Two bottles, that's just..wait, stepdad?"

"You're quicker than Oksana," the Ukrainian resumed her snicker-fest.

"You're such a freak! Why would you make up something like this about your family?"

"I'm not making it up. Not really. So I don't know who my real dad is, but if he's from our village he drinks."

"Two bottles a day?"

Dasha shrugged.

"The saying goes that if you drink less than half a liter you are either a fairy or a Jew. Which I didn't really understand since no one in my village has seen either, but then Buffy and Willow came to get me, and it turns out it's true, cause Willow's both and she doesn't drink at all."

"Kennedy drinks," Samira replied thoughtfully, "That's a second beer she's starting."

"Beer is not a drink, it's barley juice," Dasha snorted contemptuously polishing off a shot.

"Things are not going well with Andrew, are they?" the Persian nodded slightly in the direction of Dasha's glass, but got no reply. "You know, if you stop drinking you'll probably loose weight."

"You know, if you don't stop talking you'll probably loose teeth," was a grumbled response.

"Look," Samira adjusted in her seat as she switched to the matter she came to discuss in the first place, "I'm here to help you. Nobody will be happier if you bag the stalker boy than me. Just put yourself in my hands and I swear, I can make you pretty..er," she added quickly off Dasha's look, "Even prettier!"

"That's better."

"You can't stay punk, though. Punk only works on other punks and Andrew is no punk."

"I'm not going twinkle toes," Dasha sighed clearly uncomfortable with the subject. Still, she had hit a wall with what few approaches she knew and Samira was known to have a number of successful makeovers under her belt.

"No," the brunette shook her silky mane, "Perky isn't his style either. Noir is his style, but you can't do noir. You can pull off a decent Goth, though. I think I can work with Goth."

Dasha nodded then suddenly got up and tagged on Samira's sleeve. 'Let' go'

"Why?"

The girls from Rio scrambled off their seats as well in the face of the unexpected visitor. Almost in an instant the Kennedy has found herself sitting alone, but not for long.

"Hi," said Willow stopping about a foot away from her table.

"Hi," the slayer echoed. Both of them knew this encounter was bound to happened, but neither was ready now that it actually occurred. The awkwardness of the pause was greatly eased by the spectacle at the door of the cafeteria where Enise and Dasha were trying to drag Samira out of the room.

"This is a public setting," the girl protested in a loud whisper, "There's no expectation of privacy! Free press is the foundation of a free society! The public has a right to know!"

"Kids," Willow smiled awkwardly at her ex.

"Seat empty," Kennedy slightly nudged a chair across with her foot

"Thanks"

"Food," the slayer pushed the lasagna plate towards the redhead.

"Thanks, I already ate at Buffy's"

"That's right," the brunette nodded, "You don't live here. I moved into the dorms myself. I think it suits me better, I'm more of a hands-on kind of leader."

Willow lower face twitched strangely at the comment and Kennedy immediately buried her face in her hands in the embarrassing epiphany.

"I can't believe I just said that!"

"You and Linda are officially a couple now so it's okay," Willow spoke having successfully contained her laughter, "She's nice"

"Since when? Sorry. Thank you. Are you..?"

"No. I mean, no. No."

"Of course not, with everything that's going on who has the time," Kennedy ratted out then stumbled.

"Right," Willow nodded, "They are waiting for me upstairs. I just wanted to say 'hi'", she added getting up. Kennedy jumped off her seat as well.

"The one o'clock with Buffy? I think I'm in the same meeting"

They headed towards the door, Willow slightly in front.

"I'm bad at break-ups!"

The witch turned on a dime startled by the sudden outburst.

"I always end things badly," Kennedy continued, quieter, but faster; the tempo increasing with each sentence, "There's yelling, and door slamming, and thing throwing. I never see them again. Well, one time I ran into this girl at the club, but we pretended not to notice each other. I don't want to pretend I don't notice you"

"Me neither," Willow replied with a slight smile.

"Can we have lunch sometimes? The one where we both eat?"

"Sure. Okay"

They took the stairs to the main conference room. Stefka and Giles were already there, as was Buffy who was staring out the windows making up the east wall.

"Looks like we are all here," she said as Willow's and Kennedy's reflections appeared in front of her.

"What's wrong?" the witch asked grasping the mood of her friend even before she saw the expression on her face.

"There's been a slight change of plans," Buffy replied turning around her chair, "The Trojan Horse I had in mind fell through, so I'll take that role. This means our assault plan needs to be altered to recover me as well as Dawn. This complicates things, but on the plus side we get Leshii's location. Most likely he'll be right there interrogating me."

"You mean torturing you," Giles corrected poignantly.

"I've been beat on by demons since I was fifteen; I can take a little pain."

"According to Leshii's files his preferred form of torture is mutilation."

"I doubt he starts with it so let's just say you'll get me before he does."

"I don't like this plan anymore," said Willow shifting her worried eyes from Giles to Buffy and back.

"Willow is right. We should take time to come up with an alternative."

"No," Buffy stated plainly, her elevated voice rang off the walls, "I spent the last three months waiting for a better time, a better plan. It only made things worse. We are getting Dawn back now. This is the best plan we have and I'm the best inside person we have. I'm too important to be killed on the spot so it's guaranteed he'll take me inside for questioning. As for his witch, I'm sure Willow can whip out some kind of mind block that will hold her off for a couple hours"

"I will go," Stefka joined in unexpectedly, "He won't hurt me. I mean I'm high ranked as well, so he'll have to interrogate me, too"

"No, she's my sister and..."

"She's my best friend!" Stefka jumped up knocking down her chair in the process, "And you are our leader so you have no right to unnecessarily risk your life like this! I'm going!"

"You can't go.." Willow started

"She's not," Buffy's reply came a little late as she was thrown by this uncharacteristically emotional outburst from the girl.

"Yes, I'm, and it's final!"

"It won't work.." Willow tried to edge in again

"You don't get to say what's final!" Buffy raised her voice as well as herself off the chair, "This is my operation..."

"The artifact won't work!" Willow finally resorted to screaming over the bickering. With the entire room looking at her now she continued in a normal tone, "You are magic resistant, Stefka, remember? The amulet won't work inside you."

"Well, that settles it then," Buffy pushed her chair under the table signaling the meeting concluded, "I'll go over Leshii's files so I'm better prepared for our quality time together. I'd like the rest of you to work on adjusting our storm plan. We'll meet again tonight to finalize it"

"I'll need at least another day to finish miniaturizing the artifact," Willow responded, "It'll take longer if I get pulled into other things"

"The changes will be minor," said Giles getting up as well, "I can draft them myself within an hour. We can discuss them whenever you are available"

"Alright then," Buffy nodded in the general direction of the team and walked out, followed by Willow and Giles.

"Hey, blondie," Kennedy called to Stefka who was back in her chair, alone at the table, looking pale and lost, "if you are done freaking out we need to change up our drills. Let's move."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The little star shaped nugget was a very dull yellow, but seemed to be real gold, at least according to the weight as Buffy pushed it around the table with her finger.

"I feel like an amateur drug mule," she sighed, picking it up. "It's still kind of big," she commented tentatively.

"It's swallowable," Willow countered

"And jaggedy"

"We can coat it in something," the witch mused, "Want to try it out?"

"'Try it out?'" Buffy repeated raising her eyebrows, "As in swallow it now, then swallow it again later after it comes out? Yeah, that's not happening."

The conversation was rudely interrupted by Najah bursting through the door of the office. Her long dress flailing about made the thirteen year old look four times her meager forty kilograms.

"Kennedy and Stefka are fighting!" she ejaculated between two very deep breaths.

"Okay," Buffy nodded and returned to her examination, but the girl stood pat in the doorway, "I'm sure it's a very entertaining bout, Najah. Tell someone to tape it and we'll watch the highlights later."

"No!" she waved both of her arms, "They are really fighting, with blood and everything!"

They ran after Najah to the gym. The kid wasn't making things up. Surrounded by about a dozen slayers who seemed intent on keeping a fair distance a real battle was being waged. Both girls were visibly bruised, but Stefka was really taking it to the much shorter Kennedy. The small brunette was bleeding heavily from her mouth, but doing a pretty good job dodging most of the kicks and punches that flew at her at an astounding speed. After a second hesitation Willow snapped her hand forward throwing the fighters apart. The spell barely nudged the tall blonde, but sent Kennedy flying a good four meters away. Before Stefka could cover the sudden distance between them Buffy tackled her from behind.

"Let it go, just let it go," she repeated as calmly as she could to the girl writhing beneath her. As the struggle stopped Buffy got off her, but kept a firm hold of Stefka's right arm with both hands. "Alright then. My office, both of you."

"She started it!" Kennedy shouted angrily, "I was just.."

"My office!" Buffy cut her off no longer able to control herself. Realizing she was all but asking for a second beating, Kennedy walked out quietly ahead of Buffy and Stefka. Willow lingered behind giving an angry look to the spectators.

"What's the matter with all of you? Were you just going to stand there and watch?"

"Did you see the Alice shaped hole in the wall?" Dasha pointed behind her.

"What about the rest of you?"

"The rest of us saw the Alice shaped hole in the wall," the Ukrainian replied pointedly leaving the witch no alternative but to shake her head and go.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy pointed Kennedy to stop just outside the door then dragged Stefka over to corner opposite before letting go her arm. Finally she took the place she allocated for herself, smack in the middle.

"Alright," she turned to Stefka, "What did she do?"

"I didn't do anything," Kennedy protested.

"She just attacked you for no reason? I don't believe it. What did she do?"

"I made a joke!" Kennedy replied instead, "We had an argument over training procedure and she went psycho!"

"What did she say?" Buffy made another attempt to get Stefka to talk.

"All I said.."

"I don't care what you said, I care what she heard!" Buffy shouted her down, "Stefka?"

Standing in her corner was the complete opposite of the living fury Buffy saw at the gym. She was still as a Greek statue and just as pale, her unfocused stare aimed somewhere far away. Hearing her name again, she blinked deliberately as if trying to concentrate on her surroundings.

"She said," the girl started quietly, "That I'm way tensed and it's clear why, so I should take that stick out of my rear and...use it some place else. That's not exactly what she said..."

"I get it," Buffy stopped her.

"It was funny!" Kennedy rolled her eyes.

"It was crude and insulting," said Stefka in a strangely detached tone.

"I think they are both right," said Willow closing the door behind her, but getting a glare from Buffy quickly scattered over to the couch telepathically promising her to stay out of it from this moment on.

"Kennedy," the Slayer spoke sternly, "It's one thing being a firebrand drill sergeant throwing insults at new recruits, but you were supposed to be long passed that. I was warned you were too immature and inexperienced to lead an entire chapter, but I took a chance. I thought you could grow into your role. Degrading an officer in front of her subordinates is not leadership, it's abuse of authority! Next week when the Board reconvenes for regular business you'll be the proud owner of the Council's first official reprimand," she paused and took a few steps towards the chastised girl. "We'll also be voting on whether to give you one of the two the new slayer seats on the Board. I don't think I can take another chance on you."

"Buffy.."

"Dismissed!" Buffy commanded unequivocally, "Go clean up and grow up!"

"Now you," she turned to the blonde girl as Kennedy marched herself out the door, "Whatever she said, what you did was a hundred times worse! What's gotten into you? I've been getting constant complaints about you these last few days." The pause was futile, no answer was forthcoming. "I don't have time for this," Buffy grumbled, "You don't want to talk to me, fine, but you will talk to Dr. Friedman. Until he clears you, you are suspended from all your duties. Alice will take class instructions and the Special Ops. You are off all missions. You are off this mission! My sister's life is on the line and I can't count on my best! How could you do this to me? Get out of my sight!"

Her head down Stefka shuffled towards the door, but as she walked past Buffy, the Slayer spoke again.

"The day before the attack we voted a slayer into the other open seat. She was approved by unanimous consent. It was you, Stefka." Their eyes met and the teen burst out the door, tears flowing down her face.

"I can't believe you didn't say it!" Willow jumped off her seat as Buffy stared at her in bewilderment, "You had a perfect opportunity and you didn't say it!"

"Say what?"

The witch walked up to her, grabbed her friend's face with both hands and stared deep into her eyes.

'It was you, Stefka," she pronounced dramatically, "You broke my heart! You broke my heart!' Humor is always the best relief," she added as Buffy rolled her eyes.

"I don't think she'd gotten the reference"

"I didn't mean her," Willow plunked herself back onto the couch, "She isn't the only one who is in dire need of a time out."

"Meaning me?"

"I sure do. Stefka clearly snapped and a few days off would do her good, I'm with you on that, though you didn't need to bash her over the head with it. But Kennedy? How can you dismiss a candidate based on the appropriateness of a joke?"

Making a deliberate attempt to calm down Buffy sat down next to Willow and gave her a long look.

"Past relationships aside, do you really think Kennedy belongs on the Council?"

"Kennedy is a pure, unabashed alpha. That's why it didn't work between us, she couldn't take a back sit to anyone or anything. It also means that she thrives on responsibility. She's doing awesome in Rio: the case backlog is cleared, the morale is up. She should have been given this job from the very beginning. Things might have gone different"

"She's only this good because you've taught her," Buffy spoke quickly as Willow appeared to veer into an unfortunately familiar territory.

"No," the redhead countered calmly, "She's just good. And, yes, she has a loose tongue, but time may come when you will appreciate it." She stopped seeing a very awkward smile wash over the face across.

"Will, I'm not really into...not that Kennedy isn't hot, but..."

"For making speeches and telling you the way it is! God, Buffy, what are you thinking?"

"Inappropriate things," the blonde sighed apologetically

"At a time like this?"

"Yes, that's how I cope with stress"

"Then call Mortimer and cope already," Willow demonstratively gave her shoulder a shove, "You need a clear head."

"I can't; I broke it off two days ago."

"What?" Willow literally popped in her seat, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It wasn't important."

"Yes, it is! You really liked him."

"So?" Buffy shrugged, "It didn't stop Angel or Riley. Sooner or later my life becomes too complicated for a guy to handle and he bolts. That's just the way it goes."

"Don't say that! You're going to meet the right guy who loves you and.."

"They all loved me," Buffy waved her off, "Too much, too little, who knows. Maybe they were just words. Lying to me, themselves, both. I think the only person who really loved was Spike."

"Please," the witch rolled her eyes.

"No, it's true. Everything he did that was anything, he did for me. He got what he could in return, but he never made his feelings contingent on what I did or felt. He loved me with every part of his being. Even his demon allowed itself to be imprisoned so that it couldn't hurt me anymore. I never loved him. He knew it, but he didn't run away to Belize. He didn't go to LA on a personal quest to find himself. His quest was to become a man I could love," she paused reclining all the way back until her head rested against the couch, "And he did it. I could have loved him. Who knows what would happen if he were still alive? We could have been together now."

"Spike?" Willow continued to stare in disbelief, "That's who you're pining for, Spike?"

"Why not?"

"It's Spike!"

"Calm down, Willow. I'm not going to date him, he's dead. Dead dead. Unless you're planning on bringing him back, too."

"I didn't do it! I mean, I wouldn't do it," she scrambled, "He's dead. That's right, he's dead and you can't date him." Quickly she jumped off the couch and grabbed the nugget off the table, "So back to important things, I can teleport this straight to your stomach if grossness is an issue. Do you want to try that?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Stefka flew through the common area into her bedroom, almost knocking Kate down in the process. She slammed the door and dropped face down into her pillow. The soft cotton covered goose feathers sank softly beneath her, soaking up the torrents raining down from her eyes.

The familiar clanking of heals against the floor boards brought Stefka out of her trans. The ten year old quickly wiped her tears and flipped open the Bible trying to find her place among the psalms. The doorknob turned letting Hawthorne in. The girl tried hard to keep her eyes on the text. She was afraid if she looked up she would start crying again. The Watcher did his best to maintain his perfectly groomed appearance, but his tailor had a hard time keeping up with his weight loss. The wide friendly smile on the worn out face, gray from the never ending chemo, seemed as ill fit as his suit.

"Please, do not let me interrupt you," he said softly, "I simply wanted to know if you needed any assistance preparing for the Pentecost"

"This is all so stupid!" the child angrily slammed the book shut, "Why do I get stuck with so many pointless rituals? You don't have to do anywhere as much. Why can't I be a Presbyterian?"

"For that precise reason. You cannot follow me. Your faith must be your own."

"I'd rather it be the right one," the girl grumbled leading Hawthorne to chuckle in response.

"There's more than one road to God, Stefka. No one is straighter than another. When you feel you know which one is best for you, you can choose a different way. Just don't take too many turns or you will end up walking in circles"

The girl stayed silent for a minute digesting his words.

"Then what matters are the similarities, right? The differences, the rituals, they are not important."

"On the contrary, they are very important."

"They can't be!" the little Potential exclaimed now completely confused, "How can it be a sin for a Muslim to drink wine, but for a Catholic not to at the Communion? God doesn't have different standards for different people, you've told me that!"

"I didn't say they were important to God. They are important for you."

"To me?"

"Every day, Stefka, you do a total of one hundred situps and fifty pushups. You go for a one mile run twice a day and you play five games of chess with me. Why?"

"I'm training to be the Slayer"

"In what way? Does the Slayer run away from a demon in circles to confuse him? Does she vanquish evil warlocks by pressing down on them in five sets of ten? Would she be able to kill a vampire with a checkmate?"

"They are exercises," Stefka replied a little unsure, "They make my legs and arms stronger. Chess makes me think better."

"And proper worship is an exercise in faith"

"How? I don't understand; these rituals make no sense."

"That is exactly the point. Faith is not about reason, it's about believing. You must learn to believe that all these little, annoying, seemingly inconsequential actions matter," Hawthorne sat next to the girl now and gently pushed up her face so he could look into her eyes, "We are only human which means there's so much we don't know and more often than not we are unaware of that. You are a very smart girl, Stefka. You mind is a great asset, but there will come a time when everything you know, everything you can possibly think of will tell you to take a certain action. That action will be a wrong one, and your heart will tell you so. God knows what we do not. He will guide you, if you let him. When it counts, your faith must be strong enough to overcome reason."

"Is that why you are smiling?" Stefka's voice shook as she spoke.

"In light of my impending demise? It is," the Watcher nodded, the aforementioned smile even more prominent on his face, "I cannot think of a reason for my life to end now, but should I indeed pass I believe there is one. I do not know how, but I believe the world, you included, will benefit from my death more than it would from my life."

"I don't believe it, I can't"

"It's alright," Hawthorne tenderly wiped the tears off the child's cheek with his finger, "It just means you need to continue you studies."

Even with her head in the pillow Stefka felt the room getting dimmer around her. She opened her reddened eyes and glanced over at the nightstand. The candle was almost out. She took the replacement out of the top drawer and lit it just as the old flame disappeared into the puddle of wax. Stefka didn't set the candle down right away, but held it out toward the icon. The saint's eyes looked past her into the night; she wasn't one of his lost children.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy walked through the door seemingly oblivious to everyone already seated. As a Slayer she needed little sleep. Little being more than none in three days. Being woken up after just half hour has thrown her completely off kilter. It would have been better if she hadn't slept at all. Once in her chair she lifted her head and glanced around the room.

"Who called this meeting? And why is she here?" she added now more angry than irate seeing Stefka across from her.

"She is here because she called the meeting," Giles answered.

"She can't call the meeting!"

"Article three, paragraph two," the girl responded quietly and calmly, "Any member of the Board can call an emergency meeting."

"You are not a member!"

"Article one, paragraph three: once a candidate's membership has been approved, the candidate becomes a member upon taking the oath of office or seven days after the vote, whichever comes first"

"I suspended you!"

"Article one, paragraph four: a member of the Board can only be removed or suspended by a two thirds super majority vote of the remaining members"

Buffy's mouth simply hung open when her eyes fell upon Willow who came in a minute after her and has not yet taken her usual seat.

"What are you grinning at?"

"I slaved all of last summer on that charter," the redhead answered, "I happy someone's reading it"

"Are you saying she's right? I can't suspend Board members? Why would you ever put that in?"

"Are you serious?" the witch was getting a little flustered herself, "Separation of powers is the foundation of good governance!"

"Not when they are my powers! Fine," she waved Willow off before she could respond, "This better be good and quick," she snapped at Stefka.

"We are missing Ms. Ingden and Mr. Kim," Giles interjected, "We do have a quorum if you want to proceed…"

"Yes, yes, proceed, please, somebody start already," Buffy closed her eyes as she massaged her temples in a vain attempt to stop the pounding headache.

"We are not storming the castle," Stefka stated unequivocally, "We are using Parreli's plan. I will meet with Leshii. I'm magically resistant so Zemfira won't be able to read my mind."

"Please," Xander's dismissive wave was only half visible in the monitor, "You betraying Buffy? Willow would have been more believable."

"Hey!" the witch shouted offended to the core.

"I was just exaggerating to make a point"

"I'll exaggerate you!"

"Xander is right," Buffy raised her voice over their bickering, "He won't buy it."

"He will not only buy it, he will expect it," Stefka responded in strangely hollow voice.

"'Expect it'?" Buffy repeated letting the notion sink in, "Are you saying you are the spy?"

"No, I don't know anything about a spy"

"Then why would he expect you to tell him anything?"

"Because that's what a good sister is supposed to do for her brother."

The silence that followed these words was utter. Giles took off his glasses, but instead of wiping the lenses in his usual habit simply placed them down on the table.

"You were all wondering why he was after the First; what was in it for him," Stefka spoke since no one else would, "It was me. He thinks he is protecting me. All of this is because of me," she stopped and looked up at Buffy who continued to stare at her without saying a word, "We haven't spoken since I left him last June, but I have a way of contacting him. I will go to him. I will tell him whatever you want me to tell him and I will lead him into your trap. I will do this on one condition. It is non-negotiable."

"What is it you want?" asked Giles

"My brother is ill," the girl answered, her voice starting to crack, "He's very ill, that's all. He needs help…" she stumbled, but the Watcher responded instantly.

"We will make sure he is not harmed during capture. He shall be placed into the best clinic available. It will be high security, without question, but you will have unlimited visitation rights. You have my word."

Stefka could only nod in response.

"I have some thoughts on what the faux setup may be," said Parreli seeing his plan gaining momentum. "I will need Ms. Rosenberg's help working out the particulars"

"Why don't you take Stefka and adjourn to the third floor conference room. Buffy and I will join you shortly. If there are no objections," Giles looked over at the still mute Slayer, "I'm declaring this session concluded." He got up and turned off Xander's computer, then closed the door behind Willow. There were only two of them left now and Buffy made no move to leave her chair. She stared at Giles for a moment as if trying to figure something out.

"Do you really think we can capture Leshii alive?"

"No," the Watcher replied, "Nor should we try. Doing so will put innocent lives at unnecessary risk. Ten times over should he ever escape"

"We gave Stefka our word"

"No, I gave her my word. She was still wavering and I told her everything she wanted to hear. When reality proves different I and I alone shall answer for it. Your relationship with your star pupil will stay untarnished"

Buffy smiled a sad and tired smile.

"That's very thoughtful of you. Only what am I supposed to think the next time you give _me_ your word?"

"Why would you ever ask me to endanger innocent lives for a selfish sentiment?"

"I wouldn't, but it may appear that way to you. Wouldn't you trust my judgment?"

"Should I? Obviously you are not planning to trust mine."

"You are right," Buffy nodded finally getting up. She walked over to the door where Giles stood and grabbed the knob, "You are always right," she said turning to him as she paused in the entryway, "Even when you are completely wrong you somehow manage to pull it off."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Summer was almost here and Rome started to heat up. The roof of the Slayer compound was a popular place Saturday mornings and afternoons as sunbathing became the leisure of choice. At the moment, however, it was 3 am. and there was only one person Buffy expected to be up here. She sat down next to Stefka, but said nothing, figuring the girl will speak when she's good and ready.

"He'll met me tomorrow, at the church," she said quietly.

"Good. Willow found a perfect spot in Bremen. She and Giles are setting up there now," Buffy looked over at Stefka, but had a hard time making out her expression. The girl's head was turned away from her, watching the stars, which seemed much brighter tonight. "I know it doesn't feel like you can, but you should try to get at least a few hours of sleep."

"He doesn't," Stefka whispered, "He hasn't slept for years. He has this opium mixture that supposedly lets him rest his brain just as well. He says it's more efficient that way, but it's a lie. He doesn't think I remember, but I do. He would take pills and he would try to stay up for days, but eventually he would fall asleep, and he would dream, and he would scream. He screamed every time. Because you can't shoot the nightmares, can't threaten them, can't reason them away. Because it happened to him. The fear, the pain, it happened, and it would happen again every time he closed his eyes. I don't remember much of my life before he joined the gang. I suppose I blocked it out, but there are images, bits and pieces. As I grew older I understood what they meant, what he did for me," her voice cracked and stuttered, "And tomorrow is how I pay him back. I will lie to him and I will trick him."

Buffy took the girl's right hand and squeezed with both of hers

"What you are doing is the best thing for him. You are helping him the only way possible."

"Am I, Buffy? Am I helping him?"

Leaving the girl's hand in her left Buffy reached over and cupping Stefka's cheek turned her face until the girl's moist blue eyes lined up with hers.

"I swear that I will do everything in my power to take and keep him safely. I give you my word. Remember that: I'm giving you _my_ word," she paused wiping a tear with her thumb as it slowly rolled down, "That said, you don't have to do this. We have a backup plan, we'll use it if necessary."

"The Devil stole my brother from me," the girl answered somewhat louder than before, her voice gathering strength with every word spoken, "and though his flesh escaped, his soul still wonders in darkness. Every night I prayed for the Lord to show me the way, to help us find each other. I had my chance last year. I was with him for five months, but I couldn't bring him back. I failed because deep in my heart my faith was not strong enough. It is now. I believe in you," with that Stefka suddenly jumped to her feet and quickly walked off as though she said something she wasn't supposed to.

Buffy watched as the girl disappeared into the stairway. She should have gone then, too; grabbed her chance at a some sleep instead of sitting here alone for another two hours like an idiot staring at the tiny lights in the sky. The Big Dipper also known as Ursa Major. How could anyone confuse a kitchen utensil with a giant carnivore? People look at the same thing and see something completely different. Whatever she saw reflected in those giant blue eyes was certainly different. What does Stefka see when she looks at her?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

If this was a normal house Dawn would sit next to a window, but since, thanks to the tarp covering it, the castle had none that faced outside the best she could do was to sit next to her slightly ajar bedroom door, listen for footsteps. At last, after almost two days, she heard the familiar clanking against the stone. She took a few minutes to prepare herself then walked briskly down the hall and flung open the door to Leshii's bedroom.

"It's Tuesday night," she addressed the figure in the chair facing away from her, "Do you know what Tuesday is? Let me give you a hint, it's a day that comes after Monday. Do you know what Monday is? No, not the day after Sunday. It's the day I get my letter from Buffy, which I didn't. I know you are not going to tell me she didn't send one; you are not that stupid. So what's going on?"

"I wasn't ready," Leshii spoke in quiet hollow voice seemingly to himself, "How could I've been?" The chair slowly chair around. He was in full make-up including the glasses. In the faint light of the desk lamp it seemed discolored on his left side. If Dawn didn't know better she'd think he was crying.

"The letter is irrelevant," he spoke a bit louder now, "Tomorrow I'm taking you back to your sister."

The anger boiling over inside her evaporated in an instant. She crouched in front of him and put her hand over his, trying to look through the black lenses covering his eye.

"What happened?"

"You are going back."

"Why?"

"Because it seems your purpose here is complete."

"No," she said decisively, rising to her feet, "I'm done when I say I'm done. We had a deal"

"The deal is off," Leshii replied, the pain in his voice was gone, but he sounded extremely exhausted, "You can say whatever you want to whoever you want"

"Bullshit! I would never say anything to hurt Stefka and you know it. You've always known it! You need me here; Martin's research wouldn't be anywhere near where it is if it wasn't for me!"

"I'm well aware of where the true credit for his breakthroughs lie, but as much as you are needed here, I need you back with your sister more."

"No," Dawn shook your head, "That's not how it works. If I go back to Buffy, I am back with Buffy; I will not spy for you."

"I don't expect you to spy for me"

"Then what is it you expect me to do?"

"I expect you to do your best."

"What does that mean?" Even through the shades Dawn felt Leshii's eye burrowing into her, trying to measure her in some metric only he would know.

"An explanation is pointless," he finally answered, "If you are capable of understanding it you'll come to it on your own easily enough. If you are not, then you won't believe me."

"I see," Dawn nodded, "Let me ask you another question then, what does _that _mean?"

They stared at each for another moment until Leshii got up from his seat and, grabbing the girl by the forearm, silently walked her out the door. Dawn stood outside for a while deciding whether or not to attempt another interrogation. Knowing Leshii it would be best to give it some time. Besides, if he was really taking her back to Buffy tomorrow she needed to pack.

With the flooring of the castle being a mishmash of creaky floorboards and echoing stones Zemfira was the only person who could travel these halls unnoticed. Dawn set her now empty cognac glass down and turned towards the door.

"What do you, two, want?" she asked Bones and Bob as they entered.

"The Boss sent us here to pack you," the older man replied presenting two rolls of duct tape.

"First off, I don't need any help," the girl bristled, "And second, I'm pretty much done," she nodded towards the full suitcase.

"No," Bob replied, "He sent us here to pack _you_."

Dawn just stared at him blankly as his partner walked up to her and put a taser to her neck. She felt to the ground almost instantly, slightly twitching as the charge dissipated. Bob smirked and threw Bones one of the tape rolls.

"Honestly," the thin man spoke as he bound the girl's wrists behind her back, "I don't know how you could have been anymore clear"

"Sometimes these incredibly smart types can be incredibly stupid," the gray haired man replied wrapping the tape around the ankles.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bremen turned out to be much colder than Rome, especially at night. The chilled air sent shivers down Buffy's back in the same way it rippled the water in the bay. The wind and waves aside it was serenely quiet. Port operations were shut down hours ago and the section they were in hasn't been functioning in years anyway. The four of them stood facing the only entrance into the loading dock. Giles and Willow were already here earlier in the week to set up the trap, but they teleported together with Stefka and Buffy half an hour ago for appearances sake, in case the hand-off location was watched. Reaching into his coat Giles pulled out his phone apparently set to vibrate.

"Andrew just spotted snipers positioning on the crane towers at dock six. Leshii should be here shortly"

"I just thought of something," Buffy turned to Willow a bit nervous, "He knows that we know that Zemfira is likely to be with him, so if she detects the slayers then he'll realize this is a fake trap because he knows we are not that stupid."

"So he knows we are not that stupid, but you apparently have your doubts?" Willow shook her head, "I specifically chose spells that are hard to detect. She may not see them at all, but if she does she'll just think she's better than me; it'll just support Stefka's story"

"What if she's so good she'll see the protection spell, too?"

"For the hundredth time: there is no protection spell. Until the crates disintegrate and the runes are exposed to air they are just chalk doodles on the asphalt. We've put a lot of thought into this, Buffy"

"Leshii is here," Giles stopped the conversation cold.

A white van turned the corner and approached the group. It drove through the passage created by the stacked crates and stopped about eight meters in front of the Slayer. The windows were tinted, but that was no obstacle.

"She's inside," Buffy heard Willow echo in her head, "I also sense a witch and another person." Leshii would make it four. As if to answer her thought, the cripple jumped out of the driver side door. One hand was on his cane the other appeared to hold something in his pants pocket. He gave the foursome a quick look over, pausing an extra second on Stefka.

"Amulet?" He called out. Buffy retrieved the chain out of her jacket and swung it in front of her face, then shoved it back into her inner pocket.

"Let me see her!" she shouted

The back door of the van flung open and a short fat man jumped out with a loud thud. He reached into the car and pulled out the bound girl. Standing her up on her feet he pushed her to where Leshii stood all the while keeping a sawed off shot gun pressed against the side of her head. Bound hand and foot Dawn also had tape covering her eyes and mouth. She was turning her head side to side in a vain attempt to orient herself by ear. Though half of her sister's face was hidden Buffy could clearly see the recently healed scars on her cheek and remains of severe bruising peeking from under the tape. It was all she could do to keep herself from pouncing on Leshii right there. She looked over at Willow and nodded slightly. The witch snapped her fingers and the crates behind Leshii collapsed into dust revealing Kennedy and six other slayers who quickly moved to surround the van and the men outside.

"Hand her over now!", Buffy menacingly stepped forward extending her hand.

"Don't do anything stupid," Leshii replied calmly as laser sights from high above went on marking every slayer's head, including hers.

"Your can't hurt anyone here. Those drawings behind you," she made a sweeping motion with her hand. "Makes your guns worthless. We," Buffy allowed herself a satisfied smile, "Don't use any."

"Your magic doesn't affect me," Leshii responded strangely unperturbed.

"Doesn't have to," Kennedy answered from behind, "I can break your hand three times before you pull out that gun."

"It's not a gun, it's a remote control." Just as he uttered those words the sides of the van fell down revealing Zemfira sitting on top of a stack of boxes labeled C4. The little vampire was grinning ear to ear, but said nothing, holding the pause for the maximum effect.

"The thing about these protection spells," she finally spoke, "Is that they are rooted in Middle Ages. Great for stopping projectiles. Absolutely useless against shock waves and heat"

"You can press all the buttons you want," Willow responded seeing Buffy fall totally silent, "I won't let it explode"

"That's why I'm here," Zemfira answered ever so sweetly.

"You are no match for me!" Willow shouted as her frustration turned to anger.

"For one point five seconds it takes for the reaction to fully trigger she is," said Leshii. There was no response. Everyone was looking at Buffy waiting for some kind of reaction to this turn of events. The Slayer stared at Leshii this entire time, but was yet to speak a word. Still silent she turned to Stefka on her left. The girl's face was painted wildly with horrified dismay. Whatever happened Stefka did not betray her.

"Alright," Buffy spoke at last. Her voice was low and unexpectedly calm, "It officially sucks being on the other end of the whole 'no weapon forged' thing, but you are not here to blow yourself up"

"I see no difference between death or lifetime imprisonment in some insane asylum or whatever it is you planned for me."

"That's not what I mean. You knew this was going to happen, but you came anyway. Obviously you are not planning a suicide mission or it would already be over. So why are you here?"

"I've come to make a trade"

"Then lets trade," Buffy yanked out the amulet and extended it to Leshii. The Russian made no move to take it.

"This is not the trade I came here to make"

"What do you want then?"

"Before we start the negotiations may I suggest we lower the tension?"

"I'm not the one with a van full of explosives here."

"Remove the protection spell and I'll remove the van"

"Fat chance!" Willow exclaimed

"Very well," Buffy answered, raising her hand to silence a very vocal protest that, judging by the bulging eyes, was about to be lodged by the witch. "Here is how this happens: first, you take your men off those towers, all of them. Then you line them up right there"

"Twenty five meters, " Leshii said turning in the direction Buffy was pointing, "Optimum crossbow range."

"You got it. After they are there and in our sights, Willow lifts the spell and you move the van."

"Agreed," Leshii nodded and turned to Yozh, "Give Dawn to Zemfira and make the arrangements"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Within an hour it was complete. The slayers lined up on the dock with their backs to the water. The crossbows were loaded and aimed at Leshii's men. The Russians were armed with Dragunov sniper rifles, except for Yozh, whose shotgun was still pressed into Dawn's back instead of being aimed at the girls twenty five meters in front. Despite the advantage in fire power the unexpected standoff didn't sit well with the gangsters.

"What, the hell, is so funny?" Bones barked at Yozh as the fat man suddenly burst out in laughter.

"Don't you see it, man? Cowboys and Indians! It's fucking Cowboys and Indians!"

Buffy sat on one of the intact crates in front of the slayer line. In the distance the van turned and disappeared behind a wall of storage containers, but her gaze was fixed to her sister's face. Despite being twenty meters away with the tape covering her eyes, Buffy could swear Dawn was looking right at her.

"We have to leave"

Buffy turned to see Giles standing next to her.

"Our plan has failed, Buffy. It's Leshii's plan now. We have to leave before it's too late"

"She's here, Giles. Right there; I can practically touch her."

"If Leshii honestly means to trade for Dawn then he will do so tomorrow somewhere else, but if he is not, if this is a trap, then every moment we spent here puts all of us in greater danger, including her."

"She's coming home with me today, Giles. Not tomorrow, today."

"I understand how you feel, but you must face the truth of our situation. We've lost this battle. We must retreat and regroup"

"We are not going anywhere"

"Buffy, if you let your emotions overrun your better judgment you are going to get everyone killed, don't you understand?"

Buffy looked deep into the face of the Watcher and nodded.

"I understand. Kennedy!"

The girl was at her side in a matter of seconds.

"The team's all set. At this distance we can shoot lice off their heads."

"Kennedy, you are now second in command of this operation. If something happens to me you are to secure Dawn at all costs, understood? Go"

"It's easy to say 'yes' when you won't have to account for it," Giles spoke with a slight tremble in his voice, "If something happens to you Kennedy will do what Kennedy thinks is best, not what she promised you. I speak up now because I don't want 'something' to happen to you."

"Get back with the others," Buffy responded getting off her crate and headed toward the enemy line to meet Leshii who was already doing the same.

"Willow," the Watcher pulled the witch aside, "You have to get everyone out of here right now"

"No, I don't," the redhead replied taken aback.

"I know you must see what is happening. You know this is the right thing to do."

"I don't see anything, I don't know anything," the girl responded hastily, taken a step in retreat, "I don't make this kind of decisions; I just do what Buffy tells me to do and hope for the best. It's been working great so far."

"Willow, please, you have to listen to me," Giles pleaded as the girl took another step back and covered her ears.

"La-la-la-la!" she yodeled loudly shutting her eyes as tightly as she could.

"Willow, Willow! This is a madhouse!" he finally threw up his hands and walked off.

With their respective troops twelve meters behind them Buffy and Leshii were taking their to time to size each other up.

"Any time you are ready," Buffy broke the minute long silence

"Interesting, isn't? You were so angry at me the first time we met, when I saved your sister," the Russian spoke, resting both hands on the cane, "And now, when I threaten her life you are calm, almost polite. Appearances are very deceiving. I can feel the hatred boiling inside you. I have taken what is most precious to you. Worse, I twisted it, made it my own. This is a true hatred, the kind you do not want to vent, but save to be released in a final decisive blow. Do you really need to ask what trade I've come here to make? Don't you feel the hatred in me, Slayer? Did you not take something from me, twist it, make it your own? I have come here to make an even trade, a sister for a sister."

Leshii's words fell like a hammer on Buffy's head. Dazed she glanced back at Stefka in the slayer line. The girl's face was completely white.

"What are you going to do to her?"

"I'll fix her up," Zemfira giddily answered instead.

Turning from Stefka Buffy looked over at the tape covered face of her sister. There was nothing there. Dawn stood completely motionless, not a single twitch of her features betrayed her thoughts.

"No"

"Pardon?"

"No," Buffy repeated firmer now, "No deal. Ask for something else"

"There's only one fair trade, a life for a life"

"You can't change her and you know it. What do you want with her then? To punish her for hurting you? It's not her fault, you said so yourself. I did it. I turned her against you. You want revenge? You want a life for a life? Take mine."

"I don't want your life"

"Well that's the only life I have to give!" the wind surged carrying Buffy's voice over the docks, shattering against towers and containers; echoes rippling like waves of the Weser below them.

"You really are a hero," said Leshii as quiet descended once again.

"I just want my sister back"

"Then let me know when you accept my terms," he turned and started to walk away.

"No! You are not leaving with her!" The guns cocked as did the the crossbows. Kennedy's arm leaped into the air preparing to signal the strike. Zemfira's face vamped as Willow's eyes grew glossy black.

"Then we all die," Leshii responded quietly still with his back to the Slayer, "She first" Dawn let out a muffled yelp as Yozh jabbed the barrel of his gun hard in between her shoulder blades.

"Stop, just stop!" Buffy grasped her head trying desperately to hold it together. "You are a reasonable...no, you are not a reasonable man. You are a fucking psychopath! But you are a smart psychopath. There is a way out of this. Help me! Make me an offer I can accept!"

Leshii turned. For what seemed like an eternity he gazed at the exasperated young woman before him.

"I was not entirely truthful when I said I didn't want your life," he spoke, "It does hold a certain value to me. Not enough to replace my sister, but enough to give you a chance to keep her. You and I will battle. The winner takes her. The looser dies"

"You want to fight me?" Buffy could not contain her bafflement at the notion.

"That's the offer you would accept, is it not? A wager you think you are incapable of loosing."

Buffy stared at Leshii trying to discern if this proposal was rooted in duplicity or insanity.

"Very well. You got yourself a rumble. Winner takes all"

"No, just my sister. Dawn will be returned regardless of the outcome."

"That's awfully generous," Buffy responded suspiciously.

"Insurance, not generosity. You see, I plan on killing you, but I doubt your witch will let me. Faced with certainly of loosing both of you she will choose to at least save her friend even if it triggers a shootout. However, if Dawn is to be returned safely she will face a different choice. Seeing as how you already offered to trade your life for your sister's I'm hoping the witch will respect that decision"

"And what guarantees do I have that your goons won't interfere?"

"Why would they risk their lives to save me just so that I can execute them for disobeying orders?"

"If you say so. Take five?"

Leshii nodded; both of them turned and retreated towards their respective lines.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"I'm not going to kill him," she said before Stefka could even open her mouth, "I made you a promise and I intend to keep it. I'll knock him out and we'll take him with us."

"Do you think they'll let us?" asked Kennedy

"Even if Leshii lied about ordering them to stay out it should still work. He rules by fear. If I capture him he can't punish them for disobeying. These are thugs of the worst kind. There's not enough loyalty there for them to risk their lives"

"He is very strong," said Stefka, her voice trembling.

"I know all about the permanent adrenalin rush, I've taken on an entire regiment of these guys once," Buffy gently gripped both of girl's shoulders, "Everything will be fine, don't worry"

As Leshii neared his line Yozh grabbed his hostage and moved to intercept. Zemfira followed. Glancing back to see if they were far enough from the rest of the men Yozh motioned Leshii over.

"Boss, there isn't a single cell in my brain that doesn't think you can kick the ass of anyone in the gang twice over with both hands tied behind you back, but I've also seen what these bitches can do, and that one is the Queen Bitch. Please tell what do you actually want us to do."

"Slayers don't kill humans. She will attempt to take me alive"

"So what do we do if she does?"

"She won't," Zemfira responded instead.

"What if she does?"

"She won't," the witch snarled now.

"Alright. He's kicking the Slayer ass all over the docks when suddenly the sky opens up and...uhm...Archimedes strikes him down with a bolt of lightning. What do we do then?"

"If I'm unable to continue the fight," Leshii finally answered, "Call down the choppers and kill them all"

"What about Lyuda?" Yozh asked and bit his tongue realizing he just broke a ten year taboo by referring to the boss' sister by her real name. Despite the sunglasses covering it Yozh could swear he felt the green eye burning through his scull, trying to decide on a proper way of murdering him here and now.

"Kill them all," Leshii repeated and limped back in the direction of the slayers. Zemfira followed. Buffy was already waiting.

"There are two of you," she said throwing the witch an inquiring glance.

"Page duties, ma'am," Zemfira responded with a smile and curtsied. Buffy didn't need to consider the meaning of her words for long as Leshii threw his glasses on the ground next to the vampire. Grabbing the back of his hair with his left hand he ripped off his wig and face mask in one motion. His jacket followed, then the gloves. As Leshii unbuttoned his shirt Zemfira knelt down and removed the shoes from his feet. Having gathered all the belongings into a single pile the vampire picked it up and smiled at the Slayer again.

"I'm fine with my attire," Buffy said unsure if this was an invitation.

"The cane goes, too" Kennedy shouted from the back as Zemfira turned to leave.

"The guy is a cripple, you shrew," the child witch bristled.

"Agreement was 'no weapons'," the slayer would not relent, "His cane can be a weapon."

"So can the under wiring in her bra! This is ridiculous!"

"No, it's not!" All eyes turned to the most improbable Kennedy supporter, "The agreement is clear," Yozh continued in a stern and authoritative tone, "Leshii, loose the stick. Girl, loose the bra. What? I just want to see a fair fight"

"Your cane, does it shoot?" Buffy asked determined to put a swift end to the bickering.

"It's a cane," Leshii answered.

"Does it shoot?" the Slayer repeated unperturbed by the apparent condescension.

"No"

"Is it poisoned, smeared in acid, chemical or bacteria of some kind?"

"No"

"Then keep it"

Seeing her boss and the Slayer come to terms Zemfira scattered away with the clothes leaving them to face each other. Buffy looked over the man in front of her. It was a stretch to call him one. Aside from his pants Leshii wore no clothing, making apparent most of his disfigurements. Almost all the toes on his feet were removed. Five of his fingers were metallic prosthetics. His torso looked like one continuous scar as did his face having only stubs for ears and nose. The most disturbing feature was the mouth. Without any lips to cover them his exposed teeth looked like a constant hideous grin.

"Hugo would have loved you," Buffy mumbled, "Are you all set?"

"We start now," Leshii answered

"Alright then," the Slayer replied throwing the first uppercut

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Leshii's strategy confounded Buffy from the start. He would not attack or try to dodge any of her blows. Instead he would readily absorb the punishment in order to counter punch. She was clearly faster than him and could easily counteract a straightforward offense, but she couldn't do so while being on the attack herself. After getting hit in the jaw for the second time Buffy realized her problem. She was used to getting a reaction to her hits. Ordinarily her punch or kick would cause some kind of momentary disablement, some hesitation, allowing her to throw a follow up strike or switch to defense as needed. Leshii wasn't reacting. Aside from involuntary movement caused by the straightforward transfer of momentum he was striking back as though she was hitting him with a foam bat. This frustrating discovery wasn't the only thing that caught her attention.

"Willow," Buffy mentally called out to her friend knowing she'd be listening, "Take a look at Dawn. I swear there's something she wants to tell me"

"I've noticed," the witch replied

"And?"

"And I can't get in; Zemfira is blocking me"

"Any way for you to get through?"

"Sure, but when her head explodes the others may interpret it as a hostile act and start shooting. I'll keep trying," Willow added quickly getting a disappointed telepathic sigh.

For a while Buffy was fine with the blow exchange. Although Leshii turned out stronger than she expected she was still hitting him harder so it was only a matter of time before the effects start to show. In line with this permissive attitude she threw a particularly well aimed punch into his left kidney opening herself up to a retaliatory strike with the cane which she immediately regretted. The searing pain of the fractured rib rocked her body making her stumble.

"Nice stick," she panted painfully, "It's not made of wood, is it?"

"No, it's mostly lead," Leshii answered raising the implement once again.

"You could've said something"

"You should have asked"

This time she intercepted the rod in the air, ripping it out of his grasp. She leaned back as the other hand flew into her face, but at the last moment Leshii unfolded his fist clipping her just below the eyebrow. Blood poured down obstructing her vision. She pushed him back with a few kicks then stopped to clear her eye.

"Let me guess, the nails are mostly steel?"

"Titanium, actually"

The banter brought some relief to Dawn's ears. Her eyes sealed off she could only judge the fight by the sounds of grunts and punches. Not only was this unreliable, it was also very disconcerting since the pained exclamations were all Buffy's. Dawn knew perfectly well that given Leshii's fried receptors it would still be the case even if she were beating him into a bloody pulp. Still, the trademark battlefield witticisms were a welcome confirmation that her sister was still well. For how long that would continue was the question tearing her apart. She filled her letters with information about the First, the amulet, and the tablets, but she wrote nothing about Leshii. She didn't feel it was important for Buffy to know. Now this decision may very well cost them their lives. How much did Stefka tell Buffy's about her brother's condition? Does she even know that with Leshii's level of adrenalin it would be almost impossible to take him down without killing him? Even if Buffy figures out a way she is certainly unaware of the deferred compensation rule. She's probably counting on the gangsters' selfishness and ruthlessness to let her take Leshii so they can keep their lives and his share of the business. She does not know that to everyone of these killers pointing their guns at her girls Leshii represents hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars in back pay that they will do anything to protect.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Twenty minutes into the fight Buffy was making no visible progress. There was blood and there were clear contours of bruises and contusions all over Leshii's body. Certainly visible, but hardly progress as his punches continued to land just as accurately and just as painfully as ever. Deciding to ratchet up the damage she was inflicting Buffy quickly discovered herself a victim of more misconceptions. As evident from her now bleeding nose, breaking a bone in an arm does not necessarily stop it from throwing a punch. As long as the muscles and ligaments that control the movement are intact, move it will. A broken rib does not make it harder to breath, it makes it more painful to breath, a notion completely irrelevant to her current opponent. For all intents and purposes Leshii was a machine. As long as laws of physics allowed his parts to function they would. While her knowledge of human anatomy was definitely above average it was not detailed enough. She had no idea how to bring down this freak of nature short of tearing him limb from limb, something she wasn't prepared to do. At least not yet.

Leshii's insight into the structure of the human body, on the other hand, was more than up to par. Most of his blows seemed to strike at one pressure point or another. As the fight progressed the pain and ache spread through almost every part of her. Buffy was starting to feel herself getting weaker, slowing down. She was sure now this fight could end only one of two ways: quickly or badly. Dunking under a swinging punch she swept both legs from under Leshii. As soon as he was down the Slayer stepped over him, gripping her forearms around his throat from behind in an iron headlock. He may have gallons of adrenalin rushing through every capillary in his body, but he still needs to breath. Three minutes without oxygen and he will be unconscious. The metallic nails shimmered as Leshii hands left the ground and whipped into the air. Buffy readied herself for one hundred eighty seconds of searing pain, but to her surprise the fingers darted to her thighs instead of her arms. Her jeans were shredded immediately, the cold metal digging into the flesh. It took Buffy a few seconds to realize what he was doing. Releasing his neck she grabbed Leshii by the head and threw him as hard as she could, but not fast enough. The femoral artery on her left leg was already slashed sending a fountain of blood into the air. Dropping to the ground Buffy pressed her hand down on the wound and used the other one to continue ripping up her pant leg. Four meters away Leshii got up and after momentary hesitation limped to pick up his cane lying on the other side of the battle area. Having torn away a sufficiently long piece of cloth Buffy wrapped it around her thigh, letting out a pained yelp as she tightened it as hard as she could. Her enemy was coming back at her now. She scrambled to her feet and took a few steps back out of the slippery pool of her blood. It was hard to imagine she could loose so much so quickly. The wrap has slowed the flow considerably, but didn't stop it entirely. The fabric was already soaked, the red drops running down her skin in half a second intervals.

"You should have broken my neck," said Leshii, steadily closing the distance between them.

"Good idea. Next time I'll be sure to start with it," the Slayer replied

"You don't have anymore time," Leshii's swing of the cane was easily blocked and followed by a crane kick to the face, but Buffy underestimated the impact of her injury. The tight binding stopped the blood flow to the entire leg. The muscles were going steadily numb and were now unable to support even her miniscule weight. The Slayer fell down as her left leg buckled under her. Trying to make the best out of her disastrous position Buffy slammed both of her fists into Leshii's shins, shattering the bones. He didn't fall, but as his legs prolapsed the cane grazed the side of Buffy's head instead of landing dead on. Even at partial strength the force of the thirty five kilogram rod was devastating. Blacking out Buffy was still able to kick Leshii in the chest knocking him several meters away. Seemingly unfettered the Russian rose back to his feet and moved towards the fallen Slayer. It was the most macabre display. His right foot moved to the grinding sound of bone against bone as the fractured shin protruded through the skin. His left shin was completely destroyed which meant his foot was no longer flat on the ground, but on its side, dragging behind him as he was stepping on what remained of his tibia. He walked slower, apparently struggling to find a proper equilibrium now that one of his legs was twenty centimeters shorter than the other. Buffy tried getting up herself. Her head was spinning from the hit and severe blood loss while her left leg would not respond at all. She lost her balance and fell down again. Leshii was only two meters away when he stopped, suddenly struggling to breath. A convulsion rippled through his body. He bent over, planting the cane into the ground to keep himself from falling. Another convulsion and blood poured out of his mouth, dark and dense. This was coming. Thrown by his lack of reaction to her punches Buffy almost forgot that despite everything he was only human. Every one of her hits landed. Every one inflicted some damage. Most, if not all, of his ribs were broken, at least one lung punctured, kidneys and liver bruised. She wasn't trying to kill him, none of her blows were lethal, but the cumulative toll was too great. Despite the unbendable will that drove it, Leshii's body was shutting down. He was going to die right there, in front of her, on his feet. All she needed to do was to hold on a few minutes longer. Buffy looked around. Ten meters behind her was a stack of crates she could use to prop herself up into a defendable position. Dragging her paralyzed leg she turned and crawled as fast as she could.

Even blindfolded Dawn knew the fight was drawing to a quick close. The excited cheers behind her instantly turned into concerned murmur.

"Signal the choppers," Dawn heard Zemfira's whisper

"Already did," answered Yozh.

The convulsions stopped and Leshii straightened up wiping the bloody mess off his dislocated jaw. Buffy was almost to the crates when he sprinted after her. Extending his entire torso he would plant his cane into the boards and push off with his good leg covering almost two meters in a single leap. Just as Buffy placed her hand on the create pulling herself off the ground, the lead rod came down from behind crushing her fingers. She lost her grip and fell down just as another hit followed. At the last moment she was able to shift her body letting the shoulder take the brunt of the impact. The agony of the fractured joint shot down her arm meeting the searing pain of her broken fingers somewhere in the middle. The momentum almost took Leshii down as well. He stuttered back a couple steps then moved in full force again. This time Buffy was ready with a sliding block. Another hit and another block. One more time. Although she was guiding most of the energy away, Buffy could feel the bone in her forearm bruise. She couldn't continue this forever. Unfortunately she had no other defense. Her fall was awkward, trapping her good leg beneath her and with Leshii attacking relentlessly she was unable to reposition herself. With some relief she noticed that he was falling apart as fast as she was. Each strike seemed to take more and more out of him; the last attempt almost sent him to the ground. Failing at a rapid succession attack Leshii took half a step back and circled around the Slayer trying to maneuver her into a more vulnerable position. When the strike finally came Buffy felt the stress fractures reverberate through her arm, the next hit finally breaking it. Defenseless now Buffy watched Leshii raise his weapon for the final assault.

"Don't!" Stefka's desperate cry sliced through the wind. She walked towards them, the dock lights reflecting brightly of her tear stained face.

"Get back in line!" Yozh roared. Kennedy shouted something as well. Both sides were screaming at each other, fingers on the triggers. The girl paid no attention to the commotion.

"Please. I'll come with you. I will come and I will never leave, just don't hurt her!"

"It's too late," Leshii answered hoarsely, "You've already chosen your champion. You've chosen poorly." The cane came down shuttering the wooden create just above Buffy's head, covering her in shambles. She shook her head trying to clear the debris from her eyes in anticipation of the next strike which never came. Turning away from her Leshii watched for a moment as Dawn struggled against her bonds then motioned Yozh to cut her loose. As soon as her hands were freed the girl ripped the tape off her face not caring much for the eyebrows. Once her feet were unbound as well she ran to her sister's side. Giles and Willow were already there examining her injuries.

"Alyosha," Stefka called out softly approaching her brother hunched over, gripping the cane with both hands. Leshii straightened up slowly, turning his head towards his sister. Blood was dripping out of the corner of his mouth.

"Look at her," he said barely audibly, pointing his shaking hand in Buffy's direction. "Look at her!" he finally forced a coarse scream out of his damaged throat, "I spent my entire life building up the world around you. I'll spend the rest tearing it down!" His face seized, not anger, but as another convulsion tore through him. The cane fell out of his hands and Leshii collapsed face first to the ground, shaking, bloody foam bubbling up through his lips. Yozh and Zemfira were already running towards him. The fat man grabbed both of his shoulders and turned him over, trying to steady him while the the vampire ran her hands over his torso to determine the extent of the damage to his organs.

"He stopped shaking," Yozh said with a satisfied smile.

"That's because his heart stopped beating!" the witch screamed, "Tilt his head and breath in!" As Yozh moved out of her way, Zemfira dug her claws into Leshii's side and pulled apart the broken ribs.

"What, the hell, are you doing?" Yozh screamed as he was sprayed by blood escaping the widened hole in the body.

"Shut up, you fat fuck, and keep breathing!" the vampire growled furiously. She moved her tiny hand fully inside Leshii's chest cavity until her middle and index fingers positioned directly over his heart. "Where are the damn helicopters?" she screamed at no one in particular pushing down twice every second. The choppers were coming. Two of them approached from the water blowing over slayers. Trying her best to keep the hair out of her face Dawn could see three men, including the doctor, jump out of one of the helicopters carrying a gurney and some medical equipment. McClure was standing in the doorway of the second bird watching. Just as in Peru a ski mask was covering his face.

"We should get out of here, Buffy," Dawn gently squeezed her sister's hand trying to snap her out of the trance she was in.

"You are right. Willow," the Slayer stretched her neck to see the redhead attending to her wounded leg.

"Yes, yes," the witch replied hastily grabbing a handful of dust out of her pouch and throwing it on Dawn, "All set here. Where's Stefka? Her enhancement has probably worn off by now; it needs to be reapplied."

"I'll get her," said Kennedy who was crouching next to Willow helping her dress the wounds. It wasn't hard to spot the tall blonde in the crowd of men surrounding Leshii. Pushing a couple of gangsters out of the way Kennedy tagged her shoulder.

"We need to go"

"I'm not going anywhere," the girl responded grimly.

"We are leaving now," Kennedy grabbed her and pulled.

"Let go of me!" Stefka screamed jerking her hand free with a force that sent Kennedy flying a good two meters. Scrambling to her feet the slayer run back over to her ex.

"What exactly do you need to do for the enhancement?"

A little surprised by the sudden interest in her work Willow took a small round container out of her seemingly bottomless pouch.

"It's a cream. A couple smudges on the forehead and cheeks, that's all" Snatching the jar out of the witch's hand Kennedy ran over to the slayers who absent new orders were still aiming their crossbows at the Russians.

"Alice, Linda, you are with me. I need you to hold Stefka down while I get this crap on her."

"I hate to be the one to admit it," Alice responded visibly disgusted with her answer, "But we'll need at least two more girls"

"Fine. Dasha and..whatever your name is, let's go!" Gathering a proper posy put Kennedy a minute behind. Apparently deemed stable enough to move, Leshii was already strapped into the gurney. Zemfira was pulling the front towards the chopper with the rest of the men following or loading into the second helicopter. Yozh closed out the running procession. Turning around one last time just to be safe he saw Stefka coming towards.

"Where, the fuck, do you think you are going?" he yelled at her.

"I'm going with my brother"

"You are not going anywhere," the gangster raised his shotgun.

"You wouldn't dare," the girl responded, utter disdain permeating her voice.

"You are right," Yozh smirked, "He'd want to do you in himself" with that he unloaded twice. Too shocked to cry out Stefka fell as her legs collapsed under her, both of her knees pulverized.

"Son of a bitch!" Kennedy screamed catching the girl before she hit her head on the ground, "Take aim!" she raised her hand preparing to signal a strike.

"No!" Buffy voice rose even over the helicopter rotors. "Get Stefka and go! We are done here." Quickly smothering the cream on her face, Kennedy grabbed the bleeding girl and carried her over to the others. A yellow whirlwind of light escaped Willow's fingers, touching down on the outward standing slayers first then pulling back inside. Within a second the dock was clear, with the redheaded witch the last to get sucked into the magic whirlpool. High above the two helicopters turned around in mid-air and headed across the Weser into the darkness.


	11. Chapter 11: Into the Heart

**Chapter 11: Into the Heart**

The club's infirmary layout was no different than any other suite at the dorms. The common room contained most of the equipment and was designed to house up to three emergency beds, which at the moment were folded away against the wall. The two private rooms were allocated for Buffy's and Stefka's recuperation. Her sister was alone; the nurse attended to the more seriously injured slayer. She looked asleep, her cheek resting on the pillow, her eyes closed. Dawn stood in the doorway for a minute trying to decide whether to stay or go. Just as she turned to leave, Buffy spoke.

"Dasha says it's a jinx to stare at a sleeping person," she said propping herself up on the bed.

"Those wacky Russians," Dawn smiled back meekly.

"I think Dasha is Ukrainian," Buffy corrected her

"She's from Ukraine, but she's ethnically Russian"

"You can tell the difference?"

"There is no difference, but don't tell her that," Dawn's smile was an awkward shadow of her sister's, "How do you feel?"

"I can move my arms now. The leg will take longer. I killed a lot of tissue when I stopped the blood flow. They had to cut it out to make sure it didn't gangrene. There's a really gross hole there. Do you want to see?"

"You'll be able to walk, right?"

"It's just muscle, it'll grow back. You should see the other guy," Buffy smiled again. Her smile was not returned. Almost subconsciously Dawn has been moving closer with each question, now standing at the foot of the bed. Her little sister was just as she left her three months ago. Her tone was still quiet and awkward, but at least she was looking her in the eyes. Looking at her, yet past her at the same time.

"Giles doesn't think he survived," Dawn said after a while.

"What do you think?"

"I think we are not that lucky."

"You don't think this is over, do you? Why didn't he kill me then?"

Dawn pulled a chair to the side of the bed, but didn't sit in it.

"He doesn't consider death a punishment. For him it's a release. He wants you to live, at least for now. He wants you to suffer. You and Stefka."

"Capture and torture us? Bremen was the best chance he would ever get. Instead he wasted it on this pointless fight. I mean I hurt, but I wouldn't call it suffering"

Dawn shook her head.

"Physical pain means nothing to Leshii, that's not what the fight was about. It's power. He wanted to show that he could beat you on your own terms, so you could only fear of what he would do on his. Emotional pain is the only true pain in his mind. Loss, fear of loss, helplessness. That's what he wants for you and Stefka."

"The slayers. He plans to wipe out the Council just like he did with Vizzinis. He'll come after you," she added with an even greater apprehension.

"Not for a while. He'll leave the most painful losses till the end. You will be the last. I don't know about Stefka. He may be planning to leave her alive to corrode in the wasteland he would create for her"

"You think I should have killed him when I had the chance, don't you?"

"You couldn't. You wouldn't be you then. Leshii knew that. That's what he knows best, how to exploit weaknesses."

"Valuing a human life is not a weakness, Dawn"

"I didn't mean to say you're weak," the girl scrambled, "You're the best of all of us, Buffy, but it's not fair to expect you to do everything. Others should pick up the slack..."

"Should do my killing for me?" Buffy interrupted, aghast, "What are you saying?"

"I'm sorry. I'm just not saying things right today. We'll talk later, you should get some sleep." Dawn headed for the door.

"Dawn," Buffy called out. The girl stopped and turned around. "If this hasn't happened, if he didn't make you, were you coming back?"

"Here is where I want to be now. Here is where I'm needed," the girl answered and walked out of the room. She cursed herself for being so weak. It figures, though, the same feelings that gave her the courage to confront demons and murderers would cause her to cower before a single disapproving look.

"Looks will happen. Words too," she mumbled to herself as she walked down the corridor, "You know what you have to do, so stick to your guns." She stopped. Stupid idiot. Guns. Bones took hers away when they tied her up back at the castle. Neither slayers nor watchers carry firearms. Buffy was adamant on the subject, but that no longer mattered. Not if they were to survive. The names and addresses of Leshii's Italian suppliers started scrolling through her head like a teleprompter. She ran outside and hailed a cab.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Buffy lay in bed for an hour after Dawn left, trying to get a handle on her thoughts and feelings which were a hopeless, incoherent mess. Finally she sat up, not without pain, and grabbed a crutch resting against the wall. Trying to put as much weight as possible on her shoulder instead of her fractured arm, she hopped into the common room. Stefka's nurse was there, packing her bag.

"How is she?"

"You really shouldn't be up, miss Summers," the woman replied shaking her head, "Even you don't heal this quickly"

"It's just a few scratches, Mrs Owusu," the Slayer smiled, "How's Stefka?"

"The operation was partially successful. Her right knee has been fully reconstructed, but, I'm afraid, the left one was too badly damaged. It will need to be replaced. She is scheduled for surgery next week. She should make a full recovery, but she will require a lengthy rehabilitation period."

"How lengthy?" Buffy asked, but the woman could only raise her hands in bewilderment,

"I really cannot say. A regular person, an athlete, may take as long as a year to get back to form. Having seen how quickly you, girls, recover from other injuries I'm sure it'll be much less. We'll just have to wait and find out."

"Thank you. Can I see her?"

"She is still a little disoriented from the anesthesia, but I don't see why not"

Buffy walked into the room as quietly as a person on crutches is capable of. If the girl was asleep she didn't want to wake her. Stefka lay facing the wall. Hearing the slippers shuffle against the hardwood she turned her redden eyes towards the door. Realizing who it was she propped herself up on her elbows

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I..," she stuttered pleadingly.

"It's alright," Buffy put her hand on the girl's as she struggled to seat herself next to her on the bed.

"I don't know how..I said everything I was told to say, only what I was told to say..I..."

"I believe you. Don't worry about it"

"I made things worse. I was so sure, but I only made it worse," Stefka continued to ramble

"Dawn is here, with us now. I have you to thank for it. The rest will work itself out. It always does. Just concentrate on getting better, okay?"

Buffy's words seemed to have an effect. Stefka fell silent for a moment. The sapphires of her eyes sparkled with the tears stilled inside as they transfixed on the Slayer face.

"It's part of the plan, isn't it?" she whispered, "I wasn't wrong, then was I? It was supposed to be like this, it's all part of the plan. Please, tell me this was supposed to happen," she grasped at Buffy's hand as she pleaded, "Please tell me!"

The sudden bizarre turn startled Buffy. Instinctively she pulled her hand back, but Stefka grip was too strong and her entire upper body was pulled forward. Thrown off balance the girl toppled off the bed. Buffy tossed her crutches to try to help her up, but instead Stefka grasped her ankles and buried her face in the Slayer's feet.

"I'm sorry for my doubts," she wept, "His will is only for you to know and I'm just a mortal girl, I understand. I'm not asking 'why'. I accept whatever comes, but, please, tell me I've done His will. You know if I have. I beg you, please tell me, please."

Buffy's mind was racing. She desperately wanted to free herself, run out of that room and never look back, but instead the Slayer slid down slowly off the bed to the floor. She reached out to gently stroke the girl's long straw hair and said the only thing she could say.

"You did the right thing, Stefka. I'm proud of you"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

There were three floor mats laid out in succession in front of the door. Yozh took great care to wipe his boots on each of them before proceeding inside. Leshii lay there just as he left him, the heart monitor beeping a little quieter, but just as annoying. Zemfira sat silently at his head while the doctor was looking over the notes. The gangster glanced at the patient, then at the conscious persons in the room then Leshii again.

"I swear he had feet when I left"

"The shin bones were crushed into powder," the white haired doctor responded, "The amputation was necessary. I already started on the prosthesis; his mobility should not be affected."

"If you say so," the fat man shrugged and lifted the covers in a macabre curiosity, "What is that?" he asked pulling the covers still further. Deep incisions seem to cover both of Leshii's legs up to the thigh, "They look almost like letters"

"I'm not sure. He and McClure had me inscribe these with laser into the bone before we left for Bremen," the doctor answered.

"A spell? I thought this shit doesn't work on him"

"It's not meant for him," Zemfira spoke barely audibly, "It would prevent his corpse from being raised."

"Like a zombie? What does he care..." Yozh stopped and grinned widely, "No, not a zombie, a vampire. That poor, paranoid, son of a bitch. He doesn't trust anyone, does he?"

"He trusts me!" Zemfira snarled, "That's why did it! He trusts me to do what I think is best for him regardless of orders! Now where's my surgeon?"

"Surgery, looking over the charts, I guess"

Zemfira jumped off her chair and rushed out of the room. The men followed. Next door a thin bold gentleman in his mid-forties was sitting in a chair handcuffed to a gurney. His free hand was flipping through papers in a yellow folder.

"Your patient is going to die," he said with a thick German accent. He closed the cover and examined his guests. The condescending expression on his face changed immediately to concern at the sight of an eleven year old girl with them, "I'm sorry, is she his daughter?"

"No," Yozh replied with a smirk, "But he is her daddy"

"The patient is stable enough," Leshii's doctor spoke up, "Do you disagree?"

"His hormone levels are through the roof, he won't last long past the surgery"

"This is not your concern. You are a transplant specialist. That's what you've been brought here for; nothing more. Are you ready to proceed?"

"I'll need to examine the replacement organs," the German replied, "To make sure you aren't as cavalier about their condition"

Yozh unlocked the handcuffs and led the surgeon out. They went through Leshii's room and entered the area beyond. Eleven beds were crowded inside. Five men and six women hooked up to IVs, unconscious.

"What is this?" the German backed away in horror.

"The organs are best preserved inside a living body," Leshii's doctor replied nonchalantly, "Based on their hospital records each of them is a match, but we took a few extra to make sure we have backups. With four organs needing replacement there's likely to be a rejection or two."

"I will not be a party to murder!" the surgeon glared Yozh looked over to Zemfira who bolted out of the room.

"What makes think you have a choice?' the fat man inquired with a smile

"You can kill me if you like, I won't help you"

"Who said anything about killing you?"

"Are you going to torture me into operating?" the German scoffed, "I'm a surgeon! There's no finer instrument. Damage me and render me useless."

"Who said anything about torturing _you_?" Yozh smiled even wider. They stared at each for a moment when the door burst open and Zemfira entered dragging a crying ten year old.

"Annie!" the German flung himself towards his daughter, but Yozh grabbed his shoulders with his giant hands holding him in place. The child tried to pull her hand free from the witch's grasp when Zemfira vamped and bit off the girl's pinky. Jumping upon the surgeon she pulled his mouth open and spit out the chewed flesh inside. She then jammed the jaw closed and hissed with a horrifying malice.

"If my master dies I will use all my powers to keep her alive as long as I can while she watches her father devour her piece by piece!" The vampire jerked his head making him swallow, jumped off and dragged the hysterical child out by her hair. As soon as Yozh let go of him, the German collapsed on all fours retching violently. When he stopped, the gangster crouched down next to him and handed him a flask.

"Here, wash out the taste. You know," he continued as the surgeon downed a good half of the liquor inside, "I was going to threaten you too, but since there's no fucking way in hell I am ever topping _that_, I'll wish you good luck instead"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was late in the evening. Buffy waddled through piles of tools and construction material littering the club hallway. The entire building was being retrofitted to Dawn's specs. Bullet proof glass, vehicle barriers, multiple ventilation systems and air filters. Personally, she thought it was overkill, but they had plenty of money in the budget. Most importantly Buffy wanted to support her sister. Dawn has thrown herself head first into the Council business, working sixteen, eighteen hour days. She refused to kick Willow out of her old bedroom and moved into the guest dorms at the club instead. Buffy was a little disappointed at first, hoping to have all three of them share the apartment, but it turned out well. Visiting her sister gave her a reason to be at the club every day which was a good idea regardless. Finding the room empty Buffy dialed Dawn's number which immediately went to voice mail. Assuming she didn't just turn her phone off, there was only one area of the club without reception.

Buffy's guess was right on the money: the lights in the artifact storage were on. Dawn sat in the chair staring at the blueish floating cube of the hacked amulet. A snifter of cognac sat on table next to it. The white cylinder of a cigarette slowly simmered in between her long, blue leather clad, fingers. Tilting her head back, eyes half closed, the girl took a sizable drag.

"When did you start smoking?"

Dawn removed the cigarette from her lips curling them into a greeting smile.

"I don't remember," she said pensively, slowly rolling the cylinder between her index and middle finger, "Probably in Chechnya"

"I don't like you doing that"

Dawn nodded and put the cigarette out off the ashtray

"I'm not happy about the cognac either"

"Just something to do while I stare," Dawn smiled again

"I'll microwave you some popcorn," said Buffy plunking herself next to her sister. As Dawn turned to her Buffy gently pushed a few stray chestnut strands behind her ear.

"How does it go at the Academy?" the girl asked letting her sister continue to adjust her hair.

"Giles used your method to translate everything on the artifact box, but as we suspected, it was just more spells"

"That sucks. Well, maybe Willow can do something useful with them"

"She says the spells can only protect from evil stuff that hasn't been touched by evil in the first place. Which rules out pretty much everything we know. She's optimistic about using them to safeguard the amulet and, possibly, the Scythe, but it won't work on the clubhouse itself"

"We just can't catch a break, can we?" Dawn shook her head.

"I don't know," Buffy shrugged, "I'm actually kind of relieved"

"Seriously? You don't think having an impermeable sanctuary would be useful?"

"It's not that I don't think it'll be useful. I'd love to have an evil free closet where I can lock you up for the next twenty years," Buffy smiled, "But slayers are supposed to fight evil not hide from it"

"Nobody said anything about hiding. It would just be a place to rest, to regroup"

"That's how it'll start, sure. Only if you have such a place, know that you can always retreat there, hide your loved ones there and wait out the danger, the apocalypse just doesn't seem that urgent anymore, not worth the risk. The rest of the world doesn't have that luxury. To be safer than those we are meant to protect is wrong."

"I don't believe for a second, Buffy, that you would choose to protect yourself over the rest even if you had such option."

"I'd like to think that, too, but you never know; and even if you are right, just the knowledge that those I love are safe regardless will rob me of the desperation, that little edge that may make all the difference. No, even if Willow finds a way, I won't have it. 'Evil does not have the power destroy us. It is our fear of it that shall be our undoing'"

"That's awful deep," Dawn furrowed her brow.

"That was the only non-spell sentence on the box. I figure it must be important."

"Probably, but I don't think they meant it in the way you are taking it"

"I think they meant it to be generic"

"Ah," Dawn sighed with a smirk, "The ancient wisdom. I'd rather they had left some ancient instructions instead."

"We'll figure this out."

"I don't know; I hit every dead end I could think of"

"You are still at it, so you must have some kind of inkling."

"Not really. I just thought if I stare at it will long enough I'll get some more ideas."

"Talk it out, whatever comes to mind; it helps sometimes"

"The only idea I got so far is that the light show would go well with some of Samira's hash. It's a joke, Buffy," Dawn quickly added off her sister's look, "I've never done it, I just know she has it or used to have it, I guess"

"How about other people's weed?"

"I haven't done any drugs, honest. Well, I got buzzed off Leshii's second hand opium a few times, but I don't think it should count."

"Yes, Stefka mentioned he smokes instead of sleeping. Is that right?" She wasn't sure if she expected Dawn to acknowledge her actual question, much less answer it truthfully, but the girl turned to Buffy and looked her straight in the eyes.

"If you are asking me if we slept together the answer is 'yes'"

"Did he..?"

"No, it was my choice"

"Good. That it was your choice," Buffy quickly clarified herself, "Not that I approve of the choice"

"But you aren't mad either, are you?"

"No. I'm afraid I lost the right to be mad at others for sleeping with killers," she sighed, "Do you have feelings for him?"

"It wasn't about him"

"It rarely is," Buffy nodded with a sad smile.

"He is a very interesting person, though"

"A very dangerous and a very disturbed person," countered Buffy, a little thrown by the musing tone of her sister.

"That's in part what makes him interesting"

"You've come to know him pretty well, haven't you?"

"I think so"

"And you know Stefka well, too, or, at least, better than any of us"

"Why?"

"Well," Buffy hesitated. Dawn was not a doctor and discussing the topic with her was probably not the most ethical thing to do, but it seemed the most logical. "I was just wondering with Leshii being the way he is and their mother being the way she was if Stefka is, perhaps.."

"Crazy?" Dawn interrupted her in disbelief

"Not crazy," Buffy responded quickly, "Just predisposed. With this kind of family history you have to admit it's not exactly unlikely"

"What happened?"

Buffy paused looking at the quizzical eyes of her sister. She already started this so she might as well lay it all out.

"I know why she has been treating me like an object of worship. It's because she thinks I am one. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm some sort of an angel slash messenger of God here on Earth to do His bidding"

"Wow"

"Exactly," Buffy nodded in appreciation of the sentiment

"I mean, I always knew you had atheistic leanings, but when did you become so flaming?"

"What?" Buffy almost fell off the couch at the unexpected recrimination, "I'm not flaming! And I'm not an atheist, we're Christian"

"And what kind of Christians are we, Buffy?"

"The good kind?" the Slayer smiled awkwardly

"What denomination?"

"Wait, I know that one," Buffy bit her lip as if trying to squeeze a memory out of it, "Why do I want to say 'saboteurs'? It definitely has an 'S' in it.."

"You are the ass!" Dawn exclaimed unable to contain herself any longer, "We're Presbyterians; at least dad and I are"

"Don't you 'dad' me! I don't remember you going to church a single time after he left"

"I was ten, nobody would take me!"

"You are not ten now. When was the last time you visited a Presbyterian house of worship?"

"They don't have any Presbyterian churches in Rome"

"How convenient"

"I've been to a Waldensian church, Chiesa Valdese, a couple of times. They are close to Calvinism, like Presbyterians, but mostly I would go with Stefka to Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio on Sundays. It's a tiny Bulgarian Orthodox church not far from here."

"You never told me that," Buffy responded a bit hurt, "I always thought you were going out for breakfast"

"We were. The Icon-Biking-Bacon Sundays. There are, like, two places in Rome that make American style bacon. Stefka really likes it. We may start up again when her knees get better"

"Okay," Buffy said still quite confused, "I'm happy you have a hobby together, but why does that make me the bad guy?"

"You think Stefka is crazy because she's religious"

"I do not!" Buffy vehemently protested, "I got nothing against God, it's this angel thing.."

"There are angels in the Bible"

"A lot of things are in the Bible, but.."

"So people who take Bible literally are crazy?"

"I didn't say that!" Buffy exclaimed completely dismayed at how she could have been so outmaneuvered on something so obvious, "Look," she took a deep breath summoning her reasoning skills, "It's one thing to believe in angels and it's another thing to point a finger at someone and say 'you are one'!"

"Why?" Unlike her sister Dawn was an epitome of calmness and self confidence, "If you believe angels exist then it would be logical to have a criteria to distinguish them. Therefore, if you encounter someone who meets that criteria then it's logical to conclude they might be an angel. Now telling it to their face may not be exactly prudent, but it's far from insanity"

"But I don't meet any sane criteria, that's the point!"

"Don't you? Were you not sent down from Heaven three years ago?"

"I wasn't sent, Willow brought me back," Buffy countered.

"If you are Stefka, do you believe people can just get snatched from Heaven without God's say-so?"

"But..," Buffy stumbled in a desperate attempt to grab on to something as the ground beneath her argument disappeared with terrifying swiftness, "But I don't have any special powers. I mean, non-Slayer powers. I mean, why do I have to prove I am a human being, how's that not obvious?"

"That part is my fault, I think," Dawn gave a quick guilty grin, "Your sordid affairs were a frequent topic of conversation and I might have mentioned that Spike's chip didn't recognize you as human"

"But you told her it was just that thing..."

"The 'genetic tan'? Please, Buffy, it even sounds made up"

"That's what Tara said. She said..."

"She lied. You were depressed and borderline suicidal. She told you what you needed to hear"

"You are making stuff up now just to mess with me, aren't you?"

"I'm really not," Dawn answered suddenly serious, "Probably not," she added, "Nothing I've read about interdimensional travel mentions anything like that. I've spent a lot of time looking into this after Tara died because that's what she was doing. She was researching you all the way to the end. Now why would she do that if everything was settled?"

"She was researching me?"

"Yes," Dawn nodded, "I think it was a secret. A few weeks before she was killed she was really late for one of our weekly movie and smoothie afternoons so I went to her dorm room. I walked in on her, magic books and notes all over the place. She got me out of there pretty quick, but I saw the passages she was looking at"

Buffy blinked at her sister a few times trying to get her mind around what she just heard.

"I thought it was 'movie and a shake'," was all she was able to say.

"We switched to smoothies. It's healthier and it sounds a lot better," Dawn smiled.

"I'm not sure what disturbs me more. You thinking I'm not human or your incessant need to rhyme every one of your outings"

"Rhymes are cool," the teen snickered.

"No, they are not"

"Rappers rhyme"

"'Movie and smoothie'? Yeah, you are real ghetto."

"Alright," said Dawn as soon as she managed to stop laughing, "You win this one. I don't have any doubts you are human, Buffy. Sometimes refreshingly sometimes very annoyingly so. I just wanted you to see how the same facts may look from a different perspective. I'm not saying Stefka is a picture of emotional health. She clearly had a nervous breakdown, not unjustified, in my opinion. She would certainly benefit from a few sessions with Dr. Friedman, but you shouldn't be considering locking her up."

"What about you? Would you benefit from a few sessions with Dr. Friedman?"

The smile disappeared from Dawn's face as she turned away nudging her cognac glass with her index finger.

"It's been months, Buffy. I'm over it"

"It's been two weeks since six kids were executed on your orders. Are you over that, too?"

Dawn stopped playing with the snifter and turned her head to face her sister.

"It was a horrible thing that happened. I did my best," she spoke without emotion, pausing after every sentence, "I did what I could to save as many as I could. It's not my fault. Leshii is responsible for every one of those deaths, not me. I have no reason to feel guilty. That's what he would say, wouldn't he? There's no need to waste the doctor's time. I understand all of this already."

"So you don't feel guilty?"

"Do you think I should?"

They were facing each other, eye to eye, but Buffy was unable to read the expression on her face. Dawn's eyes seemed hollow as though looking inwards instead of at her sister.

"I don't know if you should; I know most people would"

"I'm not most people"

"No, you are certainly not," said Buffy and suddenly realized there was nothing she could add to this. It was not the way to end this conversation. She stared at her sister in a vain struggle to find something else to say, but Dawn broke the silence first.

"Actually I'm pretty tired. I'll go turn in, if you don't mind"

"You are almost eighteen years old, Dawn. You don't need my permission to go to bed. You need my permission to stay up," she smiled as the teen chuckled.

"Are you staying here?"

"For a bit"

"Goodnight, then," Dawn flashed her another smile and disappeared past the storage crates. Buffy stayed on the couch, the bitter feeling rising in her stomach up her throat, chocking the air out of her. Back in Sunnydale, when Buffy returned from patrol to the university dorms she would usually pass by the fountain on the south side of the campus. Sometimes, in the weening hours of a particularly cold winter night the temperature would fall below freezing and a thinnest film of ice would cover the water. Although she only had a few hours to rest before the lectures the fragile beauty of that shimmering covering would keep her there longer than she intended. Any moment now a switch fill be flipped and roaring fury that's hidden beneath will obliterate the smile on her sister's face and nobody knows when or if she will see it again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dawn gasped loudly and whipped the gun from under her pillow pointing the barrel into the darkness. The alarm blared. Two rings followed by a horn. Two rings followed by a horn. Chemical attack. Dawn shoved her bare feet into the sneakers, put her gun into the back pocket and zipped up her pants. Ever since Westburry she took to sleeping half dressed and it definitely came in handy now. Evacuation procedure called for her to head to the top floor conference room where a secondary set of air filters was installed.

"There you are!" She heard Enise's excited voice behind her, "That's everybody," she smiled making a dashing check mark in her clipboard.

"You are supposed to take roll at the evacuation room"

"I'm just being proactive," the young slayer smiled, "it's what you call leadership"

"Stop messing around and follow the procedure," Dawn barked at the girl. Somehow it didn't feel like a drill.

The main conference looked very much like a locker room with almost a hundred girls crammed inside in various states of undress. It was coming up on five in the morning and virtually all of them were asleep when the alarm went on. Most had the presence of mind to grab their clothes as they were rushed out of their bedrooms and now, when it appeared they won't be immediately dismissed, were changing into them.

"What's going on?" Dawn grabbed Alice's forearm as the girl was taking roll nearby, "Where's Buffy?"

"I don't know," the slayer replied standing on her tip-toes in an apparent attempt to locate some missing names from her clipboard, "But apparently she told Sheelah that we are to stay here until she comes and says otherwise"

Dawn scanned the crowd as best she could trying to find the Israeli girl when she saw heads turning in the direction of the doorway.

"Everybody pay attention," Buffy raised her voice over the chatter, "This is not a drill, but a precautionary measure. There's a slight possibility our air ducts were tampered with. Willow is checking it out so we will stay put until she gives an all clear. Should be an hour, tops."

"What happened?" said Dawn as soon as she was able to squeeze in through the crowd.

"Silent magic alarms were triggered in the sewers nearby," the Slayer answered, "We checked it out and found three of Leshii's men messing with the pipes connected to the building's air conditioner. They put some kind of powder inside. We don't know what because they don't know themselves. Willow said her personal protection barrier acts as a filter so she's there with her magic chemistry set."

"What about Leshii's men?"

"Infirmary. It's was closer and there's too many people here as it is. Nasira and Kate are watching them."

"Of course," Dawn nodded, "Infirmary has a separate air system, too, for quarantine"

"You should know, you put it there," Buffy smiled, "Good thing too or poor Stefka would have to hop three flights of stairs on her one good leg"

"Stefka is not here," the girl mumbled in an eerie semi-whisper, her eyes widened by the rushing epiphany, "You have to get everybody out of this room."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's a trap. Everybody out!" she screamed suddenly. The thirty or so simultaneous conversations stopped at once with every slayer fixing their eyes upon the girl.

"Dawn?" Buffy called out as her sister drifted through the crowd as though in a trance, turning around and walking backwards at times as her eyes scanned the room for something. Suddenly she stopped, extending her hand towards the windowed wall.

"That glass is enchanted and bulletproof," Buffy caught up with her and placed her hands both of the girl's shoulders to calm her.

"It won't be enough," Dawn whispered, "He knows. He knows everything. Get down"

"Get down!" Buffy yelled. The helicopter emerged from behind the office building across the street. It was flying low, almost exactly the level of the fifth floor conference. The right door was removed completely. Next to the fat man manning a large caliber machine gun sat an older gray haired man with a smoking rocket launcher. The missile hit the glass wall dead center sending shards flying every which way. The gunfire followed.

"Get away from the door!" Buffy screamed futilely. The panic has taken over the room. The exit was jammed and that's exactly where Yozh was aiming the hail of bullets. It was a brutal separation. Those with enough sense to quickly grasp the situation were on the ground alive, those caught up in the hysteria were piled in the doorway dead or dying. Caught in between was Najah. The thirteen year old stood frozen in fear in the middle of the room as the bullets wheezed by.

"Get down, you little nitwit!" getting no response Sheelah jumped on the girl, pushing her to the ground. They were all prostrate on the floor now, covering not so much their heads as ears. The racket of gunfire continued unabated, but the high pitched sound of shattering glass has been replaced the hollow sound of colliding metal. Buffy has overturned the conference table and pushed it all the way to edge providing some minimal cover to her troops.

"Shit, the bitches went to ground. I need better angle, get us higher!" Yozh shouted to the pilot. The chopper moved interrupting the steam of bullets which is what Dawn was waiting for. Rising from behind the protection of the table she aimed her revolver at the chopper and fired at steady intervals.

"Fuck!" Yozh ducked as a couple bullets ricocheted off the turret frame, "Get that damn gun off me, Bob!"

His partner emerged from the back of the helicopter with the reloaded rocket launcher. As he aimed it a the barricade two chairs came flying out window. One hit the chopper just above the door, but the other landed where Buffy was aiming, the rotor. The helicopter went careening out of control. Yozh was slammed against the turret, but luckily for him it was bolted to the floor. Bob had no such barrier and the vehicle convulsions sent him flying head first onto the asphalt ten meters below. Finally the pilot managed to steady the chopper and pick the altitude back up. Yozh wasn't aiming anymore. The bullets seemed to fly everywhere at once, hitting the walls, the ceiling, furniture, and occasional flesh. Buffy had no choice but to take refuge behind the conference table once again. The dents in its surface were sprouting cracks now. Another minute and the bullets would shred their last protection to pieces.

"He's fifteen meters further out now, you won't hit with the chair again," she heard Dawn's voice next to her, "I have four rounds left, but I can't shoot accurately from this distance." What do we do? That's what her sister was really asking. Buffy could think of only one answer and she was already here.

Teleportation aura flickered settling Willow in the middle of the demolished conference room. Her hand instantly flashed toward the hail of metal coming at her. The bullets slowed, then accelerated again, one of them piercing her palm. The witch's shriek was more rage than pain. She thrust her hand forward once more, her eye sockets filled to the brim with darkness. The bullets froze all around the room, oscillating back and forth slightly. The opposing forces heated the metal until it glowed red hot. The gun fell silent as Yozh took his fingers off the trigger and glanced into the dark corner of the chopper.

"Zems?"

The vampire's mouth was open, but no sound came out. With a clank the ammunition belt fell out of her hands; little droplets of blood crawled slowly out of the corners of her eyes.

"Go, go, go!" Yozh slammed his hand into the seat of the pilot, "Get us, the fuck, out of here!"

The helicopter peeled off just in time. The mass of lead reversed itself and went flying out of the window. A few bullets pierced the tail section, but the chopper came through largely unscathed, fleeing into the Rome's skyline. Willow rushed towards the shattered wall, her right hand now clenched into a fist. She stopped at the edge and flung her arm letting go of a ping-pong sized ball of flame. The fire accelerated, growing as it followed the helicopter's frantic maneuvers.

"It's gaining on us, shaking it off!" Yozh screamed at the pilot.

"You think I'm not trying?"

"Willow, I need you," Buffy pulled on the witch's hand, but the redhead did not react. Her eyes, still black and glossy seemed to peer through the walls of the buildings ahead.

Yozh moved to the edge of the chopper and looked down. They were relatively low, but still almost three stories high. The fireball was now close enough that Yozh felt the short hairs on his head singe.

"Got to jump, got to jump," he mumbled trying to psyche himself out.

"Give me your hand," Zemfira whispered from the inside. The witch came to, but could barely move, "give me your hand," she repeated. Yozh extend his huge palm to her. The vampire grabbed it, sinking her nails into the flesh. The fat man gasped, then gagged, as though his insides were being pulled out through his mouth. The witch slammed her other hand against the chopper wall just as the fireball reached the tail rotor. The flames flickered and scattered in all directions. Zemfira released Yozh's hand, both falling to the metal floor unconscious.

The Slayer didn't hear any sound, but felt her head spin as the witch's fury propelled the shriek past the human range and shattered the few large shards of glass still protruding from the frame of the wall. Willow pushed off the window seal, but Buffy's grip held her in mid-air.

"No, Willow, _I _need you!"

The girl turned, the dark film over her eyes thinned and disappeared. She floated back down to the floor, the rage gone; she looked anxious and lost glancing from Buffy to the devastation surrounding them.

"What do I do?"

"Help them!"

"I'm not a doctor"

"I don't care! Stop the bleeding, something, just keep them alive! Everyone!" the Slayer shouted. The room was filled with sobs and moans of pain and fear. It took an extreme effort not to fall to the floor and break down herself, "Everyone! Check on the injuries of someone next to you. If she's unconscious or close to it I want your hand up. Understand? Hands! Hands, Willow, hands"

The witch nodded and hurried over to the crowd of slayers on the south end. Buffy turned to her sister when she realized the girl was no longer next to her.

"Dawn!" she called out desperately when she saw her standing at the conference door. Their eyes met for a second then the girl climbed over the bodies jamming the doorway and disappeared. Buffy took a step after her when someone tugged at her pant leg. It was Samira. Without speaking a word the girl slowly raised her hand.

There was movement all over the floor. Without the need to cower before the bullets many of the girls were sitting up, standing up, looking over their own injuries and the ones of the friends'. In her haste towards Alice Willow slipped in the puddle of blood and collapsed onto her hands right in the front of British slayer. The girl shoulder was bloody and she was struggling to hold up her hand. Her good arm was wrapped around Enise's mid section futilely trying to stem the bleeding. Willow moved it away and placed her palm upon the wound. The poor girl scored a direct hit with a large caliber bullet. The witch slowly phased her hand through. The insides were shredded; every organ seemed to bleed simultaneously. Enise wouldn't last ten minutes. Closing her eyes Willow fused every damaged area she could locate. She knew she was doing it wrong. Basic anatomy is one thing, but the intricacies of human digestive system was not her purview. Just a few hours for the actual surgeons to put her back together is the best she could do for the girl.

"Put your arm down, Alice, and keep it down," she said moving on. Right in front of her was Najah cradling Sheelah in her arms.

"Help, help," the girl kept repeating.

Willow took a step towards them then turned and moved in the opposite direction.

"No!" Najah screamed, lunging forward to grab Willow's ankle, "Help her!"

"I can't," the witch pulled her foot free from the child's desperate grasp, "She's dead". Hands. There were so many hands.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dawn practically flew down to the infirmary. She stumbled twice, but somehow avoided spilling down the steps. She stopped four meters before the door, took a deep breath, then proceeding in a measured stride. Kate and Nasira stood outside the room Buffy was recuperating in just over a week ago, now apparently housing the prisoners. The questions, dancing on their tongues ever since they heard approaching footsteps stuck in their throats when they saw Dawn's blood soaked clothes.

"Kate, I want you to get down to the gates and make sure they stay locked. No vehicles are to be let in. Medics should enter on foot and be searched. No one enters with a weapon, not even the police, not until inspector Rezinni gets here and vouches for each one personally. Understood?"

"What happened?" the redhead was finally able to get her power of speech back.

"Do as I say and do it now!" The look in girl's eyes, more than the voice sent Kate running out of the room, "Nasira," Dawn turned to her companion, "We are about to have casualties coming in. I want you to get to the dorm supply closet and grab as many clean sheets as you can carry."

"What about the prisoners?"

"I got the prisoners, go!" As Nasira disappeared out the door, Dawn's eyes fell on Stefka who was standing on crutches in the entrance to her room, "What are you doing up? Get back to your bed"

"If there causalities, they'll need my bed," the slayer replied. She was trying hard to speak calmly, but the effort only seemed to add to the tremble in her voice , "They'll need the rest, too," she lifted her crutch in the direction of the stack of fold-aways resting against the wall, "It's faster to set them up with two people."

"Alright, just a give me a few minutes," said Dawn and grabbed the door handle to the closed room.

The prisoners stopped talking as soon as she entered. Buffy did a surprisingly thorough job securing these men. Not only were their limbs and torsos bound to the chairs they sat on, the chairs themselves were chained to the wall. There were three of them. Even sitting down Bones' thin frame towered over the other two gangsters. The young ginger on the left was Rooster; she didn't recognized the third man.

"I heard commotion up above. Did something happen?" Bones asked smugly. Dawn didn't offer any reaction. She walked past the prisoners to pick up a large pillow off the bed. Placing it in her lap she sat in a lone free chair directly in front of the gangster; an apparent leftover from an earlier interrogation.

"Don't bother pretending you knew all along what would happen," Dawn spoke calmly and quietly, "You didn't know the plan. You didn't even know there was a plan; Leshii couldn't risk Willow taking it from you."

"You are right," the gangster smirked leaning in the girl's direction as far as the bonds would allow, "I'm just a pawn caught in this battle of intellectual giants. Leshii on one side with all that blood, and you on the other, with the mocking and the trespassing charge"

"Breaking and entering," Dawn corrected, her tone unchanged.

"Oh my, " Bones chuckled, "How ever are going to afford the bail for that?" The other prisoners laughed along.

"There won't be a bail," the girl responded completely unfazed by the upbeat mood of the prisoners. "The charges are so minor the Italians won't bother with a trial; they'll just deport you, save Leshii the price of tickets."

The gangster grinned.

"Inspector Rezinni will try to connect you to the assault here as well as Modica," she continued, "but I doubt he'll have enough evidence to keep you locked up, so I'm going to have to ask you to volunteer"

"Volunteer for what?" Bones' brain would not accept the most obvious meaning of that sentence.

"I need you to promise me that you will tell your lawyer to fight extradition to Russia. The appellate process should keep you in jail for the duration of the war. I know I can't force you to keep this promise once your are in custody so it'll have to be on the honor system."

"Yozh was right, you are fucking insane," Bones just shook his head.

"I won't hand you over to the police until I have your promise"

"Please," the gangster scoffed, "you are not equipped to keep us here and if there's one thing I know about your girl scout troop is that slayers don't kill humans."

"No, they don't," Dawn replied and stood up. She put the pillow against Bones' face with her left hand then with her right she pulled a gun from her back holster and pulled the trigger. The muffled sound echoed slightly in the half empty room. The force of the shot knocked the chair back. It fell and the blood, pouring out of the blown scull, spread quickly to the stool legs of Bones' partners. "Seems Bones couldn't find it in himself to fully appreciate the benefits of the honor system," said Dawn picking off goose feathers stuck to her bloody shirt. "How about you?" she looked at the other two men.

"We appreciate," Rooster answered hoarsely. The other nodded.

"And I appreciate reasonable men. It should have been just you two in the diversion team. In fact, it was just you two, wasn't it?"

The gangsters looked at each other nodded understandingly.

"Excellent," said Dawn and headed for the door, "One more thing," she made a half turn with her head, "From this point on the honor system extends to everyone in Leshii's gang. Make sure they all understand that once they find themselves in a cell I better not find them later on the outside. These pillows are fucking expensive."

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

She should have taken the south stair case. Now she would have to walk past the regular quarters in order to reach the guest rooms. All these doors. How many of them won't have to open tonight? Buffy increased her pace, almost running down the corridor now. That's it, if she just keeps moving, keeps going, doing something, she won't have to think about this. She would have rather stayed at the infirmary, but the doctors chased her out. The blood soaked clothes were sticking to her skin, pulling it painfully with every rapid movement. She should walk through one of these doors, take a shower, grab a change of clothes. Only that would involve standing still, or worse. What if it's one of _their_ doors? What if the clothes she takes belong to one of _them_? Buffy burst through the door of Dawn's room. Her sister was sitting at the desk, the blue gloves lying next to her. It was only the third time since she returned that Buffy saw her bare hands. Prosthetics that Leshii gave her looked incredibly real, but not now. The skin colored plastic covering the fingers was peeled back as Dawn carefully tuned the mechanism with a tiny flat head screwdriver. The sight of her sister's mutilated hand came as an ice bucket onto the bonfire of Buffy's anger. For a second she almost burst into tears when the pity evaporated and the flame roared with renewed strength.

"There's a dead body in the infirmary closet," the Slayer said tersely.

Dawn took her eyes off her work and looked at her big sister.

"It's the dead bodies in the conference room that should concern you," she answered calmly.

"The dead don't concern me at all! It's the living I'm worried about! What do you think you're doing?"

"My best. I'm doing my best."

"I don't know what that means, but it stops now!" Buffy shouted standing now only a meter in front of the teen, "Whatever happens we are here to save lives"

"I was saving lives," Dawn answered.

"All lives!"

"That's what I meant. We would catch them, but we can't keep them, so they would come back over and over. If I didn't find a way to correct this behavior they would eventually get themselves killed. Now they'll stay in their cells where it's safe. This was for their own good."

"Are you joking?"

"I don't have time for this," Dawn mumbled jumping off her chair. She tried to walk past Buffy, but the Slayer grabbed her shoulder pinning her in place.

"We are not done talking, Dawn. Dawn? Look it at me!"

"I hated you," the words were barely a whisper. The girl slowly turned her head, fixing her glistening eyes on her sister, "'Why isn't she coming?' I kept thinking, 'Why is she letting them do this to me?'" She paused and Buffy could see every muscle on Dawn's face twitch as she tried in vain to hold back the tears that were welling up in her eyes.

"Dawn.." Buffy started, but the girl stopped her in her tracks putting her thin shaking finger to her sister's lips.

"I hated you so much," she went on, "That for a moment, just for a moment, I wished it was you there, hurting, crying out for help that wouldn't come," the last word barely made it out as the girl gasped for breath chocking on her tears. She grimaced, shutting her eyes tight trying to get some measure of control, "When it hit me: you wouldn't. Not for me. Willow, Giles, Angel, maybe, but not me. You would never cry out for me! I must be something so useless, so utterly pointless, no wonder nobody was coming!"

Buffy could no longer stand still. She reached out to take the quivering girl into her arms, but Dawn grabbed both her wrists with unexpected strength and pushed them back to Buffy's side holding them in place. Her sister's face was inches away from hers. Starting at the clenched jaw a new strange expression traveled upwards vaporizing the tears as it spread into her eyes.

"And that hurt, Buffy. That hurt me harder and deeper than they could ever reach! Well, I'm not useless anymore. I'm not pointless anymore. And I won't let anybody hurt you. Not Leshii, not the First. Not even you," Dawn let go of her sister's wrists, turned, and disappeared out the door. Buffy didn't move. She stood absolutely still for almost a minute before finally sinking into the closest chair.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Giles, you are here!" Willow exclaimed stopping in the doorway for a second before getting nudged into the room by Buffy who was following her.

"I was the one who called the meeting, Willow," the Watcher replied

"I thought we were going to conference you in," the girl mumbled shuffling forward still a little shocked, "You shouldn't have just flown in here like that! Leshii could have had men stationed at the airport or snipers on route or.."

"Apparently he didn't," he cut off her off and looked over at Buffy, "What's the latest?"

"Haven't lost anyone in the last hour, but Olga, Carmen, Oksana, and Enise are still critical. I don't want to stay away for long."

"Of course not. We'll keep this as brief as possible. A comprehensive strategy meeting can be postponed until tomorrow. For now let's focus on our immediate needs. The other chapters are on high alert. So far, Rome has been the only one hit, but knowing Leshii he will attempt to strike at every location. We can't rule out a follow up strike here either. Since our current security measures have clearly been compromised we need new ones."

Though Giles was the one speaking it was her sister Buffy was looking at. She was sitting next to the Watcher, across Willow, hunched over with her arms folded on the table, gnawing on the leather thumb of her glove.

"Even with everything that happened, the compound is still the safest place. I have ordered a full and indefinite lock down," the Slayer answered still glancing over at Dawn.

"Magic is Leshii's weakest point," the redhead piped in, "Zemfira is very powerful, but she is the only witch he has. I think we've established that I can take her so I'll stay at the dorms as long as needed."

"We'll need more," Buffy responded, "I'll talk to Helga and see if we can get a coven or two stationed here. I want active force fields, too."

"Two force fields?"

"Three. All around the perimeter and underground, if possible. In case Leshii decides to tunnel."

"This is pointless!" the palm slapping the table top signaled Dawn's entry into the discussion, "Until his spy is caught we can change these plans every week and still not be sure he doesn't have a way around!"

"Leshii could have easily learned what he needed from outside surveillance and through the contractors we hired," Buffy retorted, "We'll fix this going forward, but the spy issue is closed. We've been through this."

"That's right, I forgot, you asked around," the girl smirked sardonically.

"Hello, human lie detector here"

"You are not perfect, Willow, and the spy might not have even been present. It could be subliminal or a dormant personality. The only way to know for sure is to do a deep scan on each person."

"Deep scan can't be targeted to a subject area," the witch shook her head, "I'll know all their secrets, all their repressed memories. They'll never consent to it."

"You don't need their consent, you are powerful enough"

"I'm not going to mind rape a bunch of teenage girls! What's wrong with you?"

"I didn't mean it like that. Buffy will give them an order and you'll have your consent"

"'An order'?" Willow was getting more indignant by the second, "Maybe someone should teach you the definition of consent!"

"Maybe someone should teach you the definition of rape!" Dawn jumped off her seat leaning across the table as she screamed.

"Enough!" Buffy stood up as well. It actually took her a second to react as she was completely thrown by the expression on her friend's face. The witch wasn't just startled by the outburst like the rest of them; the look was that of complete and utter terror. Willow Rosenberg, arguably the most powerful being on this planet, was literally cowering before her kid sister, "Sit down," the Slayer said calmer now, nudging Dawn back into her seat, "The girls have been through enough. I will not have them further traumatized by some paranoid inquisition. The order I'm going to give is that no officer is to give an order for deep scans in Rome or anywhere else. Understood? We're done here," Buffy took a step towards the door then turned to the witch who still sitting in her chair, unmoving, "Let's go, Willow"

Hearing her name snapped the redhead back to reality. She quickly followed Buffy out of the conference room. They walked down the hall for a minute in silence.

"What did you see?"

"What?" Willow stopped on a dime and looked over at Buffy.

"You told me once that when people near you get really emotional they loose control and you see their thoughts without even trying. What did you see inside Dawn?"

The witch just shook her head. The fear Buffy saw earlier was seeping back into her eyes.

"Willow, please"

"No...I can't," she kept shaking her head, backing away half a step at a time, "I'm sorry, I just can't...I can't"

Buffy opened her mouth to say something, then abruptly turned and bolted into the stairway. Willow stood still listening as the sound of steps marched further up the stairs towards the infirmary. Glancing one final time over at the conference room she slowly started her ascent as well.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dawn kept bashing the broken chair against the floor until the back came off sending the rest of the mutilated furniture piece flying Giles' direction. He glanced at the pile of wood landing at his feet then returned to perusing the folder in front of him.

"Just let me know when you are done," he said in the most normal tone of voice. The Watcher's unperturbed demeanor had an instant calming effect on the girl. She dropped the piece of the frame in her hands and climbed into a still intact chair opposite Giles.

"I'm sorry," she sighed dropping her head into her palms, "I screwed up. Again. I should have pressed harder on the spy thing when it mattered and now I pushed Buffy too far and made things even worse, if that's possible."

"In all fairness, Dawn, your spy hypothesis had little credibility before this tragedy, especially after Buffy's survey. No one would have supported you then, myself included, I have to admit"

"What good is your support now? You can't change Buffy's mind"

"I don't dispute that," Giles replied, "But I do have access to other resources. I believe I can get MI5 agents to be made available to us. Good old-fashioned detective work will get us where a magic shortcut can't"

"What?"

"MI5? It is a British counterintelligence agency"

"Of course," Dawn rose from her seat her eyes growing wide, "That's how he did it! That's why Buffy's survey failed. I need full access to personnel files in Rome and Rio. I think I can figure out who the spy is"

"You'll have it within the hour. What is it?" Giles asked seeing the excitement on the girl's face suddenly fade.

"It won't count as proof. Not enough for Buffy, anyway."

Giles closed the folder and stood up from his chair.

"Get me the name, Dawn, and I'll get you a confession"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The sunset was in its final phase. The light scattered by shards of broken glass filled the conference room making it so easy to pretend the red shimmering all over the hardwood was nothing more than the tired sun reflecting off the polish. Willow paused in the doorway. She didn't have to step through, she could float herself over the shallow pools of blood formed on the uneven surface. She could, but Buffy couldn't. Trying not too look at her feet the witch walked over to the jagged hole in the building where the wall wide window used to be; where her friend was sitting now, one leg hanging over the edge. She sat down opposite Buffy and followed her gaze down to the chalk outline on the asphalt below.

"I guess I'm in the club now," the Slayer spoke as redhead looked questioningly at her, "My first human kill"

"He fell; you weren't trying to kill him"

"Wasn't I?"

"He was shooting at the girls, you had to stop him. It wasn't even self defense, it was more than that!" It's been a while since Willow had to reassure somebody and she wasn't feeling very convincing.

"To kill someone to save somebody else. When did it get to be our decision?"

"When there's no other choice. It happens. It happened to you before with Caleb and that other Necromancer, and Ben, too."

"I didn't kill Ben"

"No, you killed Glory, but as a consequence..."

"I didn't kill Glory," a strange smile briefly lifted corners of Buffy's mouth, "I was going to. I kept smashing her face with that hammer, but she turned into Ben and I just couldn't...Giles could"

"What?" Willow's eyes widened, "I didn't...When we found the corpse I just assumed she turned back, like werewolves...Giles killed Ben?"

"Why are you so shocked? Wasn't he just trying to save lives like I was? I stood there like an idiot threatening Ben to stay away!" she raised her voice mockingly, "Glory is a hell a god; loosing wouldn't frighten her, she'd want revenge. Giles knew that as soon as she emerged she would start killing again. Ben wouldn't have been able to contain Glory for long, nobody could. The danger might not have been as immediate as with this thug," Buffy nodded in the direction of the shuttered window, "But it was just as certain. What Giles did was a logical next step. Dawn was right, too," Buffy added after a momentary pause, "Even when we capture them we won't have enough evidence to keep Leshii's men locked up for long. The revolving door would just encourage them. They would get second, third, fourth shots at us and people are sure to get killed. Not as sure as with Glory, but almost as sure. Just another small logical step," Buffy paused and turned her back to the room, letting both of her legs hang over the edge, "I just wonder: how many steps is it until you are Leshii and killing children so they don't grow up to take revenge? I bet it's less than we think"

"That's not going to happen to Dawn"

"I suppose I have to believe you. You've seen inside her so you would know, wouldn't you?" Buffy turned to Willow, but the witch averted her eyes. The Slayer smirked, shaking her head. Willow let her other leg over the edge and scooched closer to her friend. They sat in silence for a minute before Buffy spoke again.

"Maybe I'm completely off here," she mumbled, "Maybe her way is the right way. She killed one to save many. I tried to save one and killed sixteen. Enise was doubtful for a while, but she pulled through, so sixteen is the final toll. Sheelah, Olga, Jasmine, Anat, Isabella, Irene, Maria, Anna, Liz, Nafrit, Valeria, Darina, Carla, Christine, Layla, Snezana. Snezana. She was here ten months and I memorized her name just three days ago. Kept calling her 'that girl with three braids'. I wanted to make sure I say everyone's name right in my speech for the first ever Slayer graduation ceremony. Can't say it was a wasted effort, though, I still get to make a speech," Buffy's lips twisted into a bitter smile, "The graduating class may be a bit smaller, sixteen instead of twenty four, but now I can say with absolute certainty that I can't teach them anymore than I have and they are ready to rejoin their families. The speech will be here, too," she continued as her voice started to crack, "I can't come to the actual funerals because of security. Not that I'm particularly upset about that part since this way I won't have to look into their parents' eyes, the same eyes I looked into a year ago and told their daughters will be safer with me," her voice trailed off as she buried her face into her palms, "Willow, I don't know how I can wake up tomorrow"

"It will be hard," the witch spoke softly as she put her arm around Buffy, pressing her shoulder against hers, "but you'll muddle through because whatever happened, there are things you still have to do and there are people who love you."

"You don't understand," Buffy half-moaned through her fingers.

"I do"

"No, you don't! Because sixteen is not the final toll! More will die. I don't know how many more, I don't know when it will end. I only know that they die because I wanted Dawn back. And as horrible as that feels the real kicker, though, is that when I look into those eyes I'm not sure it's still her. So, please, don't tell me you understand."

"Yes, I do."

There was something in Willow's voice that made Buffy raise her head and look into the pale face of her friend.

"Oh, Willow," she started as the meaning of those words finally clicked, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean..."

"Don't you dare!" the witch vehemently cut her off, "Don't you dare think about me right now! Not now. Stop trying to take care of everyone! Let me take care of you, Buffy. Let me be a friend to you for a change. I can do it. If just for today. I can give and take whatever you need; just let it go," she grabbed Buffy with both hands and pulled her closer, "Just let it go. Just for a little while"

"Just for a little while," Buffy whispered laying her head in Willow lap. The Slayer fixed her moist gray eyes at the red disk of the setting sun, "Just for a little while," she repeated, "Just till the day ends"

"Just till the day ends," Willow echoed squeezing tighter her friend's trembling body.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The sun has all but disappeared below the horizon, yet clouds above the city were still colored in bright shades of pink and scarlet by the light that continued to shine undiminished from the thin crimson sliver. As hours went by Rome emptied its houses into the streets, the plazas, and cafes that didn't dare to close. They sat, and stood, and walked around all the way till two in the morning knowing they would always remember this night, the night when the sun would not set.


	12. Chapter 12: Frenemies

**Chapter 12: Frenemies**

The air above the field wobbled depositing all three of them to the ground. Buffy jumped up first and, brushing herself off, looked around.

"Wheat. That's pretty much how I pictured it. The Kremlin and lots of wheat."

"I think some of this is rye," said Dawn looking over the stalks

"No one to see us, that's the important part," said Willow picking the straw out of her blouse, "Where's our ride?"

"There's a car coming," Buffy answered shielding her eyes from the sun, "I assume it's her"

Without any distinguishing landmarks it was impossible to know if the car was slow or the field really that vast, but it took almost six minutes before the large black vehicle rambled up to where they stood.

"This is not a car," said Willow looking over the monstrosity before her, "I think it's a tank"

"All aboard!" Faith called out as she rolled down the driver side window.

"Aboard of what exactly?" the witch inquired.

"I see. An all American Chevy Suburban is suddenly not good enough for your fancy fannies."

"This is a Chevy?" Buffy asked going around to the passenger side, "What did you do to it?"

"You know how those dealers are," Faith shrugged, "One moment you're getting a nice sensible vehicle, the next you've got floor mats, alloy wheels, scratch resistant coating.."

"Three inch composite armor..," Dawn added examining the metal of the open car door.

"Is it scratch resistant? Because if it's not, I'm taking it back!"

Hastily herding her sister and Willow into the back seat, Buffy climbed next to Faith and buckled up as her former rival got the car into gear.

"Seriously, where did you get it?"

"The two day rental is part of the payment for services rendered. Slayer services, " Faith added in a hurry before Willow could put her word in, "It's a quality ride; sails right through bullets and RPGs. It even has a reinforced bottom for any mines that happen to lie around."

"Did you scout the restaurant?" said Dawn leaning forward in anticipation of the answer well versed in how poorly the sound travels from the front of the car.

"Very posh, very public. If Jap is planning on killing you it would be on the way, not there."

"I'm sorry," Buffy couldn't help, but start on the topic that's been gnawing at her for a while, "But am I the only one bothered by calling him that?. Aside from the obvious racist undertones the guy isn't even Japanese! He's half Korean half Uzbek."

"'Jap' is a standard Russian nickname for anyone even remotely Asian looking," Dawn responded, "Like 'Tiny' for a fat biker."

"She's right," Willow's peppy endorsement rang out in the cabin, "Grandma Rosa used to tell me gangster stories when I was little. Apparently one of the most famous 'Japs' was the leader of Jewish gangs in Ukraine a hundred years ago."

"There you go," Faith nodded with a smile, "a little 'Jap' trivia from a little JAP1 of our own."

"Bite me, trailer tramp," the witch snarled

"You wish"

"Ladies!" Buffy jumped in, aghast at the exchange, "You both promised me you'd be nice to each other!

"It's just a friendly teasing bout," Faith chuckled, "Red and I are buds"

"Clearly"

"It's true," the brunette pressed on, "We've totally bonded on that LA road trip."

"I heard it was two hours and forty seven minutes of the awkwardest silence ever"

Faith shook her head at Willow's reflection in the rear view mirror.

"You just have to tell her everything, don't you?"

"Sure I do," the redhead flashed back a smug smile, "You'll understand when you get a friend that's not pretend."

"Burn!"

"Dawn!"

"It rhymed," the girl responded still laughing, "I had to acknowledge it"

"Oh, jeez," Buffy threw herself back into her seat exasperated. "It actually happened. I'm the lone adult in a car full of brats. How long is this road trip anyway?"

"It's about sixty kilometers to the outer ring road and another thirty in the city."

"So that's what? About sixty miles?"

"Do you have to convert, still?" Faith may have spoken the words, but Buffy practically felt the baffled stares from the back seat as well.

"I can't help it," she half grumbled half apologized, "I got no innate feeling for these metrics. How can a kilometer be sixty percent less than a mile, but a kilogram twice as much as a pound? It makes no sense!" almost as a sign of protest she put her feet up on the dashboard and pressed her head against the glass, "Unless you are measuring wheat," she mumbled, "That's way too much wheat for pounds."

The uneven pavement of the country road mitigated by the quality shocks of the heavy vehicle was rocking the passengers to sleep. Buffy rested her head against the window trying to decide whether to give in to the urge of closing her eyes. In the passenger side mirror she could she Dawn has already made her decision. Her sister looked very calm in her sleep. It was easy to forget there's a hurricane churning inside that deceptively fragile body. Maybe she was wrong to bring her here. She could have gotten all her info on Leshii's gang in Rome and should Willow's translator spell fail Faith would be just as effective backup. This was never her idea. If it was at all possible she would send Dawn to a sanitarium for a month or two, but even if they find qualified staff, no place outside of the Clubhouse was safe from Leshii. Would it be better to lock her up in some padded room there? Giles had a point, Dawn's obsession revolves around contributing in a constant and meaningful way. Taking away her ability to do so would just destabilize her further. A better approach would be to let her get involved, but in a controlled manner, like this trip. It all sounded so logical two days ago, but now...'_Objects in mirror are closer than they appear_' read the inscription right below her sister's reflection. If only it was true.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Summer was here and the courtyard of the clubhouse was getting to be much too hot for the afternoon tea. The air-conditioning in Buffy's office, on the other hand, was set to the same cool twenty two degrees Giles left it at the last time he substituted for her. Setting aside his glass of scotch the Watcher took a sip out of the tea cup Alice just poured for him.

"I feel a great need for these moments," he spoke wistfully, "Even amid the carnage of war we must never forget we are a civilized people or we are not worthy of survival"

"Sir Winston Churchill always made his war plans taking tea," said Alice taking some herself.

"Thankfully he was also partial to a good scotch," Giles added spurring a snicker from the girl, "Your grandfather flew in the Battle of Britain, did he not?" Alice nodded. "And your father flew in the Falklands, if the memory serves me."

"That's right," the girl nodded again, smiling, "And my great-grandfather sank two German U-boats in the first World War; and my great-great-grandfather fought the Russians in Crimea. No Benson has ever lost a war. I intend to see the streak live on."

"Without a doubt," Giles took another sip of his tea, "Although the legacy of serving the crown will now end with your father," he added after a pause, "It must be very disappointing for your family"

"I've been called to duty," Alice answered firmly, "It may not be the one I planned, nevertheless it is an honorable vocation"

"It is certainly that," the Watcher agreed taking another small gulp, "Still the urge to continue your family's glorious history of service must have been overwhelming. The offer from MI-6 was just too good to pass up"

"Excuse me?" Alice ejaculated, coughing up the tea she just drank.

"It was around late August or early September of last year when this man approached you," Giles whipped a photo out of a folder lying next to his cup and slid it towards the girl, "Introducing himself as Martin McClure. You might've even remembered him from the few times you visited the Watchers Council as a Potential. He told you that he was an agent of British intelligence assigned to keep an eye on the destroyed Council. He asked if you would do the same for the one newly created. Nothing insidious, just information gathering. Just to make sure the American Slayer does not accidentally infringe on our nation's interests," as he spoke Giles watched the girl's face contort in confusion and fear.

"I have no idea what..."

"Dawn does," he interrupted her, "She has spent a lot of time with Mr. McClure and Leshii," Giles paused for a second to let the idea sink into the young slayer, "Before you conclude that the brave agent has infiltrated our enemy you must know that he attempted a similar deception at the Rio office. This time he purported to be a member of Argentinian intelligence to recruit Linda Suarez. If you recall, she was one of the slayers Kennedy brought with her for the Bremen mission. To paraphrase Dawn, she's not the brightest young woman, but with remarkable instincts. She turned McClure down even after he threatened to expose her family's ties to the deposed junta. The blackmail did keep her from reporting the incident, but once confronted by Dawn directly she gave us every detail as I hope will you."

Alice jumped off her seat almost knocking the chair down.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," she spoke in a loud shaken voice, "And I will not stay here and listen to these wild and vile accusations!" She hastily retreating towards the door.

"I wouldn't leave this room, Alice," the Watcher's voice was steady and cold, "It is not safe for you out there"

The girl's hand paused on the handle as her head made a half turn.

"We have suffered a great tragedy here," Giles continued, "A tragedy facilitated by your actions. Not on purpose, of course, but grief hardly makes for discerning decision making. The girls are just looking for someone to blame, to punish anyone involved."

"You wouldn't dare tell!" the girl exclaimed full of fear and desperation, "You have no evidence!"

"I wouldn't, but Dawn is livid with you. She worked very hard to safeguard the lives of her friends, but because of what you have done that work was turned against them. Frankly speaking, Alice, given how she spent the last three months I would not dare wager what that girl will or will not do." The slayer was still standing at the door, but with her back to the exit now. Her square jaw, once the most prominent symbol of steadfastness, was visibly trembling. "I want to protect you, Alice," Giles proceeded in a softer tone, "I don't think you did anything wrong. You were betrayed. Your noble desire to serve your country was used against you. In a way, of all the survivors of the raid, you are its greatest victim. You never meant to hurt anybody, I can convince the others of that, but not if you leave. We need to know what Leshii knows. If you deny your involvement, if you refuse to help now that you know the truth, then my position becomes untenable and I won't be able to keep you safe"

Getting up from behind his desk Giles walked over to the mute girl and taking her by the shoulders guided her back to her seat. He took out a pad and two pens and placed them in front of her.

"Start with the dates and locations of every meeting. Include the description of every document you handed over and write down every bit of conversation you can recall. Take as much time as you need," the Watcher walked back around the desk to his chair and picked up the still simmering pot off the hot plate, "More tea?" he inquired politely.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When Buffy opened her eyes the wheat was gone. The view from her window was wall to wall cars. The traffic jam extended the entire length of the Krymsky bridge and spilled into as much of the Garden Ring road across the river as she could see.

"We aren't going to be late, are we?" she inquired of Faith who was sucking on an unlit cigarette.

"Nah, we have another hour. Go back to sleep; you can stand some more"

"No, it's alright. Don't want to be all drowsy before the meet. Presentation is important with these people. Got to look sharp and dangerous"

"You are dangerous," Faith's lips broke into a good-natured smirk, "Took you a while, but you are finally counterattacking. I like seeing that."

"Taking the fight to the enemy works when you know where the enemy is, at least approximately," Dawn responded having just wakened herself a few minutes earlier, "Before we could start combing the world for Leshii we had to secure our bases"

"All done there I take it?"

"Nothing is a hundred percent, but yes. Just finished moving Asia-Pacific branch to Okinawa, courtesy of Colonel Finn."

"Yes," Faith smiled, "Nothing spells safety to teenage girls like ten thousand horny marines"

"Jealous much?" Willow parried

"Covered both contingencies," Buffy responded, "Got chaperones for those who want them and condoms for those who don't. However you want to look at it, that branch is the safest"

"Chinese slayers are the safest ones," Dawn disagreed.

"Why Chinese?" asked Faith as she happily sped the car up to eighteen kilometers per hour.

"There were a hundred and seventy four slayers called in mainland China, but we were able to get just eighty six out before the government got wise," the girl explained, "The Ministry of State Security has the other eighty eight. They are not really prisoners, more like their Olympic athletes, isolated, with a bunch of perks and propaganda. Even if Leshii can get past the ridiculously heavy security we'll never know; the government will just cover up any casualties. All it will get him is a pissed off three million person army. No, Leshii won't touch them with a three meter poll. That's a ten foot poll for you, Buffy."

"Smart ass," the Slayer chuckled along with the rest of the cabin.

"So are we putting all slayers up at army bases?"

"No, every chapter is different," Buffy answered, "We placed Cleveland office high on the Homeland Security's terror target list, so there are dozens of FBI and National Guard swarming around. Not a single drive-by or sniper attack for two weeks now. We had to dissolve the Indian branch though. Chennai is just too crowded, the authorities couldn't give us a big enough buffer zone. We thought about splitting them up between other branches, but decided to pull a Witness instead: sent them into the countryside. You think finding Harrison Ford among a few thousand Amish is tough? Try sifting through six hundred million Indians, especially with locator spell scramblers cast all over the place."

"Interesting," Faith spit her half-chewed cigarette out the window and stuck a fresh one between her teeth, "I thought Indian branch was the only one that didn't get hit"

"Actually, it was supposed to be obliterated," Dawn answered, "Leshii hired Kashmiri terrorists to help him smuggle explosives, but they double-crossed him; killed his men and used the explosives themselves. We got really lucky"

"Really lucky," Buffy repeated after her, "The five hundred people on that commuter train, not so much"

"They are not slayers and they weren't killed by demons so they are not our concern"

"They may not be our job, Dawn, but all dead people concern us, or, at least, they should," Buffy looked over her shoulder at her sister. The girl stared back without a shred of emotion.

"What about Rio?" Faith eagerly broke the uncomfortable silence.

"Rio is staying put"

"I heard things were pretty bad there"

"Bad," Buffy echoed, "But not as bad as Rome. We lost two watchers and eight security guards, but no slayer causalities."

"After four straight days of throwing up Kennedy wished she was dead," Willow added, "But they will all be fine. I always wondered how slayer healing would affect poison. Now we know"

"Civilian toll is huge, though," Buffy continued, "You heard that part right. Over eighty people, mostly kids. There's panic; everybody is hoarding bottled water, nobody bathes."

"On the plus side it got the authorities on board with anything we want to do against Leshii," Dawn spoke while keying something into her cellphone, "With all those gang controlled favellas around he must think he's well positioned, too. I think Rio will be our main battleground."

"If all out war is your plan wouldn't Africa be a more likely spot?"

"Actually Xander's chapter may be the second most secure," Buffy answered, "He moved everybody to a preserve in the middle of the savannah. Can't even get within mortar distance without them noticing."

"Leshii wouldn't sneak around in Africa," the brunette slayer scoffed, "He'd just hire an army, tanks and all."

"Nope. Xander thought of that. Africans are very superstitious. He moved every witch doctor and shaman he could find into the compound and made it known. Leshii would have to bring in his own men by the hundreds and there's no way they can get by Xander's new fossa."

"Fossa?" Despite being the driver Faith couldn't help, but stare at Buffy, "It's the size of wiener dog! Is it magic or something?"

"Not the animal. It's a Russian air defense complex. Giles bought one off some general in Chechnya."

"You mean 'Osa'. Nice, very resourceful of Giles," Faith smiled. It hasn't escaped Buffy that she glanced in the rear view mirror when she said that.

They drove in silence for a few minutes when suddenly the car swerved into the rightmost lane.

"Faith, what are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm parking," the slayer replied pulling up to the curb.

"Don't you think we should circle? We are twenty minutes early; I don't want to appear too eager"

"This isn't a date, Buffy. In a potentially hostile meeting it's better to appear when you are not expected, just in case."

The four of them got out of the car and headed towards the front door which was flanked by two men on each side. At first glance they appeared to be customers on a post meal smoke, but bulges on the left side of their belts indicated otherwise. As she approached them Faith flashed a smile to the bodyguards. The men gave no response, but once the girls walked inside, two of them followed.

"It's a sushi restaurant," said Buffy a little startled by the unexpected décor.

"Sushi is the bomb in this town," Faith replied

"Isn't Moscow, like, two thousand miles away from the ocean?"

"The stuff they serve here is mostly cooked"

"As in 'almost cooked'? You are not making it sound any better"

"Can't help you there; I have to wait over here with these two handsome boys," Faith sneered stopping a few steps past the doorway, "Good luck"

The restaurant was full of staff, but devoid of customers except for a single table at the far end that seated five men apparently in the middle of a meal.

"Don't need to point out Jap, I assume," Buffy heard Dawn whisper in her ear, "The guy next to him with a bad afro is Uncle Fyodor. All European consumer imports go through him. The skinny guy with a burn scar is Krueger. He handles Central Asia, mostly heroine imports. The guy across him is Snowman, I think. He handles Far East, mostly Chinese trade. Don't know who the last guy is"

"You are early," Jap spoke as they approached the table. A slight ringing sensation in the Slayer's ear meant he was speaking in Russian. Let's see if the second half of Willow's translation spell works just as smoothly.

"Are we?" Buffy pretended to check her watch, "I thought we were fashionably late. All these time zones, I just can't keep track. But, as long as we are here," she smiled a most friendly smile.

"Let's get the ladies seated," Jap addressed his cohorts. Uncle Fyodor and Snowman pushed their plates across the table then moved their chairs to the opposite side with the other gangsters. One of the waitresses, a young Kazah woman painted to look like a geisha, quickly placed three chairs in the freed up space while the other set the silverware and china. As Buffy and the girls joined the table Jap poured vodka into their sake cups.

"To our guests," he said raising his hand in a toast

Willow watched both Summers' dunking their shots along with the men, but made no move to touch hers. Jap sat his cup down and grabbed a piece of California roll from the large plate in the middle of the table. Holding on with two fingers he smothered it in soy sauce he sent the whole thing into his mouth.

"Food's good," he motioned with his hand, "Try it"

"Thank you, it's a little early for us," Buffy smiled graciously, "Still on Rome time"

"As you wish. To business then," he wiped his hand and threw the brown clothed napkin on the table, "This is all very simple, actually. There's a war between you and Leshii. I want to make sure it stays between you and Leshii"

"I don't think I follow"

"We are first and foremost businessmen here, Summers. Leshii's leadership has been profitable for us for many years, but as of late he became increasingly distracted with personal matters. So it was decided it would be best for all concerned to go our separate ways"

"Are you telling me Leshii resigned?" Buffy practically squinted in disbelief.

"That is exactly what I'm saying. Leshii is no longer part of this organization and we are not part of his campaigns. Don't get me wrong," he added quickly, noticing an upcoming objection, "Some of the men left with him. He's got enough doe to spread around and spread he did. Here," he signaled and a waitress placed a folder before Buffy, "Is everyone who left with him. As far as we are concerned whatever you do to them is your business. Conversely attacking Leshii's former business interests and men not listed here is to be avoided for all our sakes."

"No way," Buffy shut the folder shaking her head, "There's no way Leshii would just walk off like this"

"Leshii is no idiot. He will not fight two wars at once so he chose to fight you and I recommend you do the same"

"Or he came up with this charade so that I leave his reserve of money and men intact"

"The money is ours, the men are ours. He's not getting any of it"

"Am I supposed to just take your word for it?"

Jap took another piece of the roll and jammed it into his mouth.

"You are in my country now, Summers," he stared down the Slayer as he spoke, "You are the outsider here, the enemy. The police, the customs, all those government bureaus you rely on out there, are on our side here. Without them you can barely fight us, much less beat us, so either you choose to believe you don't have to fight us or you start a second war and loose both"

As he spoke Buffy wondered if he would swagger this much if he knew Willow's spell rendered all the guns in the room useless. She could beat the crap out of all five of them and their bodyguards without spilling the soy sauce, but instead she just smiled.

"If we are so harmless then what are we all doing here?"

"What we always do, business. Most of our clients are either shipping something to Europe or bringing it in. If there is a war you will interfere with the trade and we'll loose hundreds of millions in commissions. We've taken the steps we could to prevent this, we separated from Leshii; the rest is up to you."

"Willow, thoughts?" She asked the witch mentally.

"He's telling the truth, but he is also hiding a lot," the redhead answered barely containing her giggle at the probably intended pun.

"Alright," Buffy nodded, "Let's say you are honest about all of this. Leshii may not be. What happens if he comes back in a few months and say he changed his mind, that he is the one in charge again?"

"Not going to happen"

Buffy looked back to Willow, but this time the witch seemed a little perplexed.

"You know I always wondered how a lie detector would react if you tell it something you really hope to be true, but afraid it probably isn't," Dawn's entrance into the conversation was most effective as all heads turned in her direction, "This meeting isn't about us shutting down imports and exports. Jap knows Leshii's planning to come back and he's counting on us to make sure he doesn't."

"Do I now?" Jap smirked, but Dawn seemed to pay no attention to him.

"The key is the deferred payroll," she continued to face Buffy as she spoke, "Leshii has walked away with all the money the gang made in the last decade. Control of revenue streams will compensate these guys and their personal crews pretty quickly, but not rest of the rank and file. They weren't told they lost their money. As far as they are concerned Leshii didn't quit, just taken a sabbatical. Of course, their coup only works if we kill him, otherwise he just waltzes back in and takes over again."

"You spent too much time with Leshii, girl. Who knew paranoia was an STD?" Jap forced a chuckle as he looked over to his comrades, but the group was as sullen as they were silent.

"That's a beautiful crucifix you have there," Dawn continued unperturbed, "Best gold work I've seen in a while, but I bet you'd trade it for a certain plain silver cross in a heartbeat. True, with the real thing seared into Leshii's chest it's not easy to get, but if you really are the official heir, wouldn't you have gotten yourself a perfect replica for all to see?"

"Watch it, Summers," Jap growled, "Your psycho of a sister's taking you to war over a trinket"

"You are not paying attention, are you?" the girl sighed, "We want you to succeed just as much as you want us to. Misrepresenting your hand hurts us both. Here," a slight of the wrist and a thumb drive slid from Dawn's fingertips up to Jap's plate.

"What, the hell, is that?"

"If you've done your homework you'd know we have a lot of girls from this region. First thing we did when the war started was evacuate their immediate family. Extended family is a different story. It's simply not feasible to move them all. They may be very low values targets, but they are zero cost. Sooner or later Leshii will strike at them simply because he can. If he does, we'll be forced to take action on your turf and your cohorts will start wondering why you are letting us. You'll be dragged into the very war you are trying to avoid."

Whether Jap was actually thinking things over or just holding pause for a dramatic effect his desire to delay a response wasn't shared by the other gangsters.

"We'll find some excuse to put these people on the official protected list," Uncle Fyodor spoke in a low, raspy voice, "If Leshii were to strike at them then he'd be publicly acknowledging the split in the gang and forcing a war with us he gave up a lot to avoid. He would probably risk it for someone of your caliber, but not for these nobodies," with that he grabbed the memory stick with his large hairy paw and placed it in his coat pocket.

"An excellent plan," Dawn smiled at the man.

"Yeah," he responded with an all knowing smirk, "Lucky I came up with it"

"I do believe we just reached an understanding here," said Buffy looking over the other side of the table, "Am I wrong?"

"No," Jap replied glancing at his co-conspirators, lingering a bit longer on Uncle Fyodor, "I think we are settled."

"Excellent. Have a good day, gentlemen, bon appetit" She stood up headed out the door. Willow and Dawn followed.

"You didn't tell me you were going to do that," Buffy spoke up as they neared the car.

"I wasn't sure I was. It was 'if opportunity presented itself' kind of thing; I didn't want you to get sidetracked. I'm sorry," Dawn added puzzling over the concerned look on her sister's face, "I heard how worried you were about these people so I thought you'd be happy if I were to take care of them for you."

"You did this for me?"

"Well, of course, why else?"

"Thank you," Buffy forced out a smile and got inside the cabin, "Alright," she said as the last car door slammed, "I think we are good to go, Willow"

"Don't be like that," Faith groaned, "You just got here. Let's hit a few clubs and you can leave in the morning. I promise good times all around.

"I don't doubt," Buffy smiled,"But I hate to leave Rome Willow-less for longer than necessary and I have to pack for India myself"

"India? You just said you dispersed that chapter"

"Exactly. There's an artifact we need to recover and with South Asia office being no more it's my team that gets to go."

"Fine," Faith sighed, "At least leave the kid; I hate going solo"

"No one is going solo," Buffy responded, "You are coming with us"

"To Rome? I am an internationally wanted criminal, remember?"

"You'll be safe at the Club. Police or Leshii, doesn't matter"

"Three years in the slammer was enough indoors time for me, thank you very much. Besides I figure I'm safer here by myself than with you"

"What?" Buffy scoffed.

"The way I see it this is all about a psychopath trying to destroy everything and everyone his sister cares about. From what I've heard of the girl, a fugitive killer is going to be pretty low on that list," Faith smirked

"I don't know where you are on Stefka's list, but I know where you are on mine and I'm not leaving you here all by yourself"

The slayer took the cigarette from her lips. The young woman's face was suddenly serious, almost somber.

"I actually appreciate the sentiment B, I really do, but I'm not all by myself. This is my home. I protect this city and, if I need it, it will protect me. You have a lot of people to take care, but I'm not one of them anymore. It's a good thing," all of a sudden Face leaned over and swept Buffy into a tight embrace. Taken completely unawares by the unexpected outburst of affection she didn't know how to react, when she heard Faith's lips moving millimeters from her ear, "Watch your little girl, B. Don't let her out of your sight," she let go and pulled back into her seat. As they made eye contact, Buffy nodded slightly.

"Are we good now?" Willow inquired from the back seat.

"Yes," Buffy answered.

"Hands, please," said the witch extending her arms to the sisters.

A light blue shimmer and Faith was alone in the car once more. She looked at her watch. The peak traffic was just starting. Even with the siren sitting in her glove compartment she wouldn't make much of a headway for at least two hours. Setting her boots on the dashboard the slayer leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes for a much overdue nap.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The chant hit the high note and slowly ebbed. The elder mystic extended the idol towards Buffy who bowed deliberately, reaching out with both hands to receive it.

"I thank you, personally, and on behalf of the entire Council," she said wrapping the statue into specially prepared wooly covers, "and swear it will be returned to you quickly and as good as new. Well, not new, undamaged. I mean, not anymore damaged. I mean, exactly the same. Yep, that's the one!"

"It is not the superficial damage that concerns me," the younger guru replied grimly

"Do not let it," his brother answered stepping down from the alter, "Their cause is just"

"Their cause my be just, but our god is holly. In eight centuries the idol has never been moved"

"Nor has it always been here," the elder countered, "The shrine stood without it for almost six hundred years and it will stand here for another month. Do not berate our esteemed guests, they have done nothing to desecrate our temple"

"I'm about to," Dasha mumbled under her breath.

"Are you serious?" Oksana whisper shouted as she saw the Ukrainian wince and grab her stomach. "You've already gone three times today!"

"Where there's three there's four. That was one evil curry"

"I told you to stick to rice and naan like everyone else, but, 'No, I'm on Atkins!'" the Russian did her best Dasha impression.

"Atkins works! I lost twenty pounds already"

"Twelve of them in the last eight hours"

"Ah, the food poisoning diet," Samira piped in walking a step behind the pair, "Second only to heroine diet in its effectiveness."

Buffy didn't hear the playful banter behind her, she was focused on the twin Hindu mystics leading the way. The elder was a stocky man with a pleasant demeanor. The younger was thin and acerbic. If being born six minutes apart could produce such differences what could she expect from her six year younger twin? Dawn has never been far from her mind, but ever since the Rome massacre she was all Buffy could think about. It is why she left Willow behind to guard the clubhouse. It is why she put it on official lock down. A lovesick teenage slayer overcoming her fear of snipers to sneak out on a date was a possibility. Dawn trying to hunt down those snipers was a certainty. Has she accepted this temporary confinement or is she plotting some way around it? Before Moscow she would dismiss these thoughts as paranoia, but Faith felt the same thing. Let Parreli be right, let this idol be the last ingredient he needs. Whatever the First is planning It needs a corporeal form so the spell should set It back and she can concentrate on Leshii, end this war as quickly as possible, for Dawn's sake.

"Vines," the younger mystic spoke stopping in front of the curtains of roots.

"I remember," Buffy responded, "We passed them on the way here. You waved your staff and they retracted; it was very impressive. I'm all set for the encore"

"They are dead," the Hindu stated plainly.

"Eyes open, everyone!" Buffy shouted drawing her blade, "We have company" The slayers quickly jumped into formation, as much as the passageway would allow, but no attack was forthcoming.

"I'm not usually shy about a fight," Buffy said after a moment of looking around, "But we have what we came for. How about you just teleport us back to the inn?"

"I'm afraid our powers fall far short of what you are used to with Lady Willow. We require the energies of the main chamber to perform such a spell."

"Why do I think it's exactly where they are waiting for us?" Buffy sighed, "Lili, get your skinny axe over here and help me chop through these!"

The underground maze of the temple seemed much longer now that the apprehension set in. Buffy didn't expect to be attacked in the passageways. The advantage of Necromancers lay in the number of Bringers they could summon. Staging a battle against superior skilled slayers in a narrow space would be plain stupid. As for the Creature, It simply wouldn't fit here. The fight is set in the main chambers, no question about it. How many are there? Is the First with them? Would the mystics be able to get them out in the midst of battle or do they have to obliterate the enemy completely before the teleportation spell can be cast? The thoughts have been jumping around her head for half an hour now. If they were in Rome Willow would hear them, and be at her side already. Or, to be precise, they would have been home for the last twenty six minutes putting Buffy square in the middle of a nice cold shower. She pulled on her white cotton blouse, trying to get the soaked through fabric unstuck from her back. Even under ground the oppressive humidity of Bengali jungle was wringing her body dry. She stopped when she saw a narrow sliver of light falling down on the sandy floor. Only a long winding staircase separated them from the main chamber.

"Guru Vasu," she called out to the elder brother. The mystic knew exactly what she meant. He crouched down and grabbed a handful of dirt. As he slowly let it slip his grasp it formed tiny figurines on the ground.

"A Necromancer and eight animates," he said taking a moment to interpret the signs.

"Just eight Bringers? Can't be."

"Maybe he has that crystal, like in Istanbul," said Lili.

"We'll see," Buffy responded starting up the stairs.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

There was no use in hiding; no point in a rush attack. Buffy understood this as soon as she laid eyes on the Necromancer. A pleasant looking Chinese man in his fifties he was clad in a garb of a Catholic bishop. The black dress contrasted beautifully with the ornate golden arches comprising the shrine of Agni2. The minions, similarly dark dressed, lined up a few steps below, on the main platform. The structure stood in the middle of the square chamber facing the west wall which hid the entrance to the tunnels. The temple door was behind them on the east wall. It was obvious the Necromancer knew exactly where Buffy was going to come out and likely knew the make-up of her team as well.

"Here," the Slayer handed the bag with the idol to the younger mystic, "You better hold on to this for now. It's only eight Bringers so I'm going to check it out on my own," she addressed the girls, "If it turns out to be a trap then you are my reserve troops; feel free to charge to my rescue"

Buffy strolled casually towards the shrine sliding a mail glove onto her left hand. This was the biggest adjustment she made since Istanbul. The long sword, strapped behind her back, was still her favorite weapon, but the ability to grasp the blade and shorten the reach as needed gave her a much more varied fighting style. The Necromancers have apparently made adjustments as well. The eight 'animates', as the mystics called the risen corpses, were clad in leather and metal armor instead of robes and, most interestingly, were non-uniform in size and appearance. They also seemed smaller and skinnier than their predecessors. Full helmets hid their faces save for a narrow crack where eye sockets would be. Is it that the helmets are generic or does this new breed of minions have actual eyes they can use?

"Good evening," Buffy spoke up as she traversed half the distance to her enemies without evoking any reaction.

"Greetings to you as well," the priest replied slightly bowing his head.

"Wow," Buffy was honestly taken aback, "Politeness was one thing I did not expect"

"I've come here to kill you, not to insult you," the man replied with a pleasant smile.

"I'm afraid you already did. Just eight Bringers, really? I understand, eight is a nice, lucky number, but so is eighty eight. Or, you could have at least made them eight feet tall or have eight arms, or something."

"I think you'll be pleasantly surprised"

Immediately seven warriors streamed forward leaving just one minion, clad in black plate armor, standing by its master. Buffy drew her sword and attacked. The Bringers clearly upgraded more than just their clothes. By the way they deflected her strokes the skills of the new foot soldiers were light years ahead of their predecessors. Even more profound was the change in tactics. No longer mindlessly throwing themselves under her blade the seven animates' attacks and defense were perfectly coordinated. Despite the ten fold increase in their fencing proficiency Buffy still felt she could take out anyone of them with a five or six stroke combination. Except that they wouldn't let her string together more than two, attacking from multiple angles at once and backing each other up on her counterstrikes. Invariably Buffy had to fall back on her windmill defense, but unlike the Bringers in Istanbul her opponents would just stand back and wait for the sword to stop circling. On occasion one of them would deliberately expose itself to a strike to give the others a clean shot on the counterattack, but Buffy has already been burned by Leshii to fall for this trick. In a way they reminded her of him. The seven of them were a single machine, without pain or fear, cold and calculating, ready and willing to sacrifice any part of itself for the final victory. Another wave. Buffy dove under the axe and swung her sword at the defenseless midsection of the attacker. Once again she was denied by the blade of one of its partners. She twisted her body as two spears rushed at her and whirled the sword chasing her enemies back. Another cut. Damn it! They weren't serious injuries, more nicks than wounds, but it was the third time they drew blood and she has yet to score a limb, much less a head. This isn't going well at all.

"Ladies, any time you are ready!" she shouted over to her backup troops. In between the flying blades Buffy's eyes happen to fall upon the platform. The black knight's arm flung to the left and four of the minions ran to intercept the incoming slayers. The Necromancer wasn't the one directing the fight it was another animate. Interesting. With only three attackers remaining Buffy could breathe a bit easier. The girls had a five to four advantage which meant it was only a matter of time before they can dispatch enough enemies to reenforce her. Then again, she may not even need reinforcements. She pierced the upper torso of the enemy ahead, seemingly falling for a decoy and getting her weapon stuck. The others attacked from the flanks as expected when the Slayer stepped forward into her victim and grabbing the part of the blade sticking out on the other side with her metal glove twisted it, slicing off the arm and blocking at the same time. Down to two and a half now. Make that three and a half. The animate in black has descended from the platform some time ago. It stood equidistant from the two battles for a few minutes seemingly deciding which to join. Buffy's move has broken the tie. The new entrant come in with a flourish brandishing two strange looking swords. A modified samurai kodachi, its blade split in two around the middle. One side continued straight on while the other curled into a hook. The skills of the warrior in black seemed as much above the others as they were ahead of the original Bringers. As she was being pushed back Buffy had a disturbing notion that she has seen this unusual fighting style before. Attacked on four sides simultaneously she didn't have much time to consider this, though. She whirled the sword around trying to buy some room, but instead of moving away like the others, the black armored animate blocked it with the hooked part of its left sword, then instantly brought over the right sword on the other side and pulled hard in the opposite direction. Locked in between the two blades the longsword was torn right out of the Slayer's hands, momentum carrying it almost all the way to the foot of the shrine. Buffy stepped back stunned as much by this unceremonious disarmament as by the sudden realization of where she has seen this move before. Stefka's advanced unconventional weaponry course was the bane of her special ops team. There was just one girl who was able to sail through; the weapons she chose for the final were grappling hooks. Just then Lili's horrified shriek rose over the clanking metal. She dropped her axe and backed away from her opponent as it rose off the ground. Its helmet has just been knocked off revealing Rasa's partially decomposed face complete with the black bullet hole in her cheek. The fighting stopped. The slayers stood frozen as the rest of the animates lowered their weapons and took off the helmets.

"Still feeling insulted?" inquired the animate in black throwing her headgear down as well, "I should think dying at the hands of her students would the greatest compliment for a teacher"

"I don't intend on dying," Buffy responded pulling out her spare dagger.

"I suppose not. You got us killed once already. They say it gets easier each time"

"Sheelah is dead. If you think a talking cadaver can rattle me you are wrong"

"Am I?" the ex-slayer smiled

Damn it! In a few seconds that she was distracted two more fighters joined the troops surrounding her. With the girls literally paralyzed by the revelation Sheelah kept just two of her corpse corps in place to continue the effect. The six ex-slayers arranged themselves in two circles. Three, including Sheelah, on the inside and three on the outside. There was no way Buffy could get to her sword now. Even if she were to slip through the inner line, the outlaying fighters would carve her up. The Slayer braced herself as the attack resumed full force. She used her dagger to deflect Sheelah's kodachi then tried to catch the sword coming at her from the side with her glove. Bad idea. It was one thing to grip a stationary blade she controlled and another to stop one powered by the strength of a slayer. The weapon plowed through the steel mesh and sliced a deep groove into Buffy's hand. Blood spewed forth coloring the ringed metal and dripping onto the tiled floor of the temple.

"You struggle needlessly," Sheelah spoke again, "If you die Father Li will bring you back. You'll get a second chance to lead us, to watch over us. Isn't this what you wanted?"

"I have enough people on this side to watch over, thank you very much" Buffy snapped, wincing in pain

"Not to worry; they will all join us soon enough," the ex-slayer answered. Sparks burst forth as it slid the blades of its swords across each other and another attack wave rolled in.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For the last seven minutes the five slayers stood still, staring at the undead faces of Rasa and Carla standing in between them and the merciless thrashing being inflicted on Buffy.

"Hey Carla," Samira spoke up suddenly, "I was kind of waiting for you to bring it up, but since you won't I'll do it instead. You know, those diamond earrings that you 'borrowed' from Lili, where are they? I really wanted to avoid the whole speaking ill of the dead thing and sneak them back into Lili's jewelry box before she noticed, but I couldn't find them anywhere in your room"

"You took them?" the French girl's hand gripped her axe tighter as she stepped forward, "Those were my great-grandmother's! You better tell where they are and pray they are still there!"

"As long as we are asking the tough questions here," Samira continued watching Lili's increasingly red face as closed in on Carla, "Rasa, would you mind explaining what you meant by telling Andrew two months ago that he could do better than Dasha?"

"You said what? Why, you overgrown Barbie, you are so dead! You are deader than dead!" the slayer screamed launching her mace into the animate.

"That's better," Samira mumbled as the two on two battle erupted full swing, "Oksana, Nasira, you are with me. Snap to it! You, go south, you go north," she pointed the girls as they run towards the encircled Slayer, "Draw their attention, then retreat to Dasha's and Lili's position. I'm going to get Buffy out" She slowed down a little letting the others charge ahead with their assignments; the large black eyes narrowed as she concentrated on her big move. She is only getting one shot at this.

"Buffy!" With two of the ex-slayers in the outer perimeter distracted, Samira attacked, sweeping her guan dao at the feet of the assailants. Having heard her screaming the animates easily jumped out of the way, but that was the point. As Samira's weapon made its way into the inner circle the Slayer stepped onto the blade then pushed off just as the Persian pulled up with her all her might. The extra lift propelled Buffy over both layers of the enemy catapulting her just a few feet away from her sword. The animate of Olga rushed over trying to beat her to it, but the Slayer got there a second quicker. A block and a swing and the longsword sliced the torso in half. Brushing aside her blood and sweat soaked hair Buffy took a moment to examine the situation. Dasha and Lili were seconds away from disposing of their opponents which would leave Sheelah with just four cohorts. Easy pickings.

"Behind you!" Buffy quickly turned to face the Necromancer. No longer sitting comfortably on the steps of the shrine, he was walking towards her in calm, measured steps.

"Take out the priest, Buffy!" Samira shouted over once more, "We are good here"

"Speak for yourself!" cried out Nasira as she was pushed into the wall by Sheelah. Barely blocking one incoming blade she got punched in the head with the handle of the other sword. The follow up never came as the ex-slayer turned about to block Samira's attack.

"Go help Oksana; I got Sheelah"

"Of course you do," the animate responded, deflecting the glaive, "You finally found an excuse to bag one, haven't you? Your people will be so proud"

"Oh, my God!" Samira shrieked angrily, "I'm getting so tired of this crap and of repeating myself, but since this is definitely going to be the last time, here you go. The reason I made sure to kick your ass every day in practice for the first month is because a new girl should never be this stuck up. The reason I didn't invite you to any of my parties is because you shamelessly stole my best friend's boyfriend. And the reason I'm going to chop your head off now is because you are a brain-eating zombie. None of this has anything to do with you being a Jew, you paranoid freak of nature!"

"Yes, I suppose I imagined pig snouts on my pillow, glue in my shampoo bottle. And the heals on all my shoes must have fallen off by themselves. Or was it termites?"

"I never did any of those things!"

"You knew who did and what did you do about it? Laugh along? Make a suggestion or two for appearance sake? After all, a wise royalty mustn't separate herself too far from her subjects."

"They were stupid, harmless pranks, that's all"

"Yes, just childish pranks. Certainly nothing to damage your popularity over by defending some social misfit. She'll be fine. She'll just laugh it all off when she gets older. Except that I'm not going to get any older, am I? You know what, I take it back, you are not a bigot. You are just a lousy human being"

Samira's lips trembled. She blinked rapidly trying to keep the moisture confined within the vastness of her obsidian eyes as her hands tightened around the shaft of the guan dao.

"You are right, I am a bratty, selfish little princess. But if you think you can guilt someone like that into getting killed then you've got to be the dumbest corpse in the world!" she screamed swinging with all her strength at the enemy

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

With all the fighting going on around her it was hard not to get distracted. The Necromancer just stood there, looking at her, but Buffy was determined not to make the first move. Even with the frantic dodging she had to employ she was still sporting fourteen slashes of various depth. None of them serious, some even starting to close up, but many were still dribbling blood. The one in her left palm hurt worst of all which meant just one hand on the sword and hence little room for adjustment. She could not afford more surprises; whatever magic this guy has up his long black sleeve she will wait to see it first. The wait didn't turn out to be that long. The Necromancer placed his right hand above the other and a dark sphere of smoke formed between them. Buffy took a step back preparing to dodge, but the priest pulled his hands wide apart instead, the smoke between them hardening into a pole, with a curved blade forming at the end.

"A Grim Reaper scythe? Seriously? Sure, it's thematic, but hardly practical"

The Necromancer responded by swinging the weapon at her head, then expertly blocking her counterattack with the handle and bringing the blade down.

"Unless you practiced hard," Buffy corrected herself, barely dodging the strike.

"You are strong indeed, but God has given me the power to destroy you"

"You really think the First is God?"

"Blessed is the Angel of Destruction, for it is by Its hand that the Lord shall deliver us from this world," the priest spoke as he swung his weapon.

"Blessed are the fools!" Buffy snapped, blocking the blade of the scythe as it swept for her neck. As she blocked she twisted towards her opponent perfectly knowing the disadvantages as well as advantages of the long reach weapons they both wielded. With only a foot in between her and the Necromancer she jammed the handle of the sword into his solar plexus. As he stumbled backwards enough room was created for a kick in the face and with additional two feet that came as a result of that move the Slayer was free to swing her sword cutting a wide swath across the black tunic of the priest.

"Looks like you lost this one as well, Father. God just isn't with you today"

"But soon I shall be with Him," the man smiled, "I'm glad it was you" The dark fabric made it difficult to tell the severity of the wound, but the bleeding was considerable. Still, the priest was able to maintain a fairly competent defensive stand.

"Okay, this complimentary thing is wierding me out," said Buffy not in any hurry to attack. Who knows what kind of tricks a sorcerer may still have.

"The others hate you, it is true" the priest responded, "They hold you to be an abomination; a hybrid even more vile than the creatures you were created to exterminate for you were created by the schismatics."

"Hold on," Buffy lowered her weapon, "I know that word. Are you saying the Shadow Men were with you?"

"Time was we were one people, seeking to deliver mankind from darkness, but God's sign opened the eyes of the Prophets and they saw that the darkness was inside every man and freedom lay only in death. They went on with their toil, but others would not except the truth and turned away from the Lord's will. Intent on keeping mankind in this world at any cost they shunned no heresy, no corruption. You are the culmination of their treachery."

"Not high on 'treachery', but I like being the culmination; makes me feel accomplished"

"Indeed. So would turning such creatures to God's work be the culmination of my service to Him," the priest stumbled and leaned on his weapon for support; his tunic was now visibly soaked, "You would have been a greater deed, but it appears your redemption will escape me. I'm sorry I could not free your soul"

Buffy straightened up and tossed her weapon aside.

"Slayers don't kill people. You are not as far gone as the others I can feel it. I can help you. Come with me. You don't have to die"

"Poor, confused child," the Necromancer chuckled, "Don't you understand? Death is God's greatest gift. It is His covenant with us to shed all vestiges of this corrupt existence and be joined with Him in all His glory and perfection," his hands trembled as he lifted his scythe, "Rejoice, Woman!" his voice boomed through the chamber, "For you, too, are welcome into His arms!" He plunged the staff foot deep into the floor. The ground cracked and the walls shook raining down parts of the ceiling. As black smoke rushed from the eyes and mouth of the Necromancer into the scythe, his body withered and shrank until finally collapsing into dust. The tremors intensified sending the entire structure into convulsion.

With the walls coming down the fighting stopped. The slayers ran for their lives while the animates stood as they did the second their master's heart took its last beat. Finding her opponent unmoving while the ceiling over her head the opposite, Samira turned to flee as well, but the floor under her cracked and her shoe caught in the gap.

"Shit," she squealed unexpectedly falling on all fours. She twisted her foot side to side to get it loose when two strong hands gripped her shoulders.

"Get down, you little nitwit!" Sheelah shouted pulling her loose as a ceiling tile collapsed on the very spot.

Dodging the falling stones Buffy glanced over to the the exit: it was completely buried. To her left the twins have shed their invisibility spells and were running towards her,

"There you are! Get us out of here now!" she shouted.

"No! The temple must not fall!" the younger mystic screamed grabbing the scythe. For a second his face contorted in fear and pain before he was thrown clear into the metal rails of the shrine. Giving his fallen sibling a brief glance the elder brother knelt in front of the weapon now.

"You have to teleport us out of here or we'll all die!" Buffy cried desperately trying to get through to the man.

"Our first duty is to the safeguard the temple," the guru mumbled reaching for the poll apprehensively, "I'm sorry"

"Of all the stupid...out of my way!" Buffy pushed the man aside and grabbed the scythe herself. The second her hand gripped the wooden handle the world around seemed to slow then fade. She could see and hear nothing. Just feel. Death. Death inside her, crawling through every organ, every capillary. Of course it is. Thousands of cells die every minute. And thousands are born. Thousands of people die every day and thousands more are born. She, too, will die. Death is nothing to run from. She will die when it's her time. Only when it's her time and not before. Death is nothing to run to, either. Death just is. Like life just is. Like the smooth wooden poll in her hands. Effortlessly she pulled the scythe out and tossed it aside.

"Now what?"

Taking a second to get over what he just witnessed, the mystic thrust his staff in place vacated by the Necromancer weapon. The trembles grew sparser until finally the floor beneath Buffy's feet was solid again.

"Roll call!" she yelled into the ruins straining to see through the dust.

"We are all here," she heard Lili answer.

"And the dead ones?"

"Deader," Dasha responded this time, "They just stood there as the stones buried them. Except for one," she pointed to the right of her. Buffy looked over to see Samira and Sheelah sitting quietly on the pile of rock.

"I got it," Buffy looked around to see the handle of her sword protruding from under the rubble. Tossing a few stones aside she picked up her weapon and headed over.

"No!" Samira screamed shielding her companion as the Slayer appeared suddenly before her with sword at the ready.

"Sheelah is dead, Samira. This isn't her"

"She saved my life"

Buffy sighed and lowered her blade.

"It's just poltergeist. I've seen it before. When a person dies a violent death a shadow of their spirit is sometimes left behind to reenact the final moments. The last thing Sheelah did was save the life of a slayer. It's like a recording, it has no will of its own"

"Then she's not evil?"

"She's nothing. It does what its master tells it to do"

"I can tell her to do good things, then she'll be good" Samira said pleadingly

"Is that what you want? Some mindless doll following you around, doing your bidding?"

"You have half the girls at the club doing that already," Dasha piped up from the back

"And Sheelah was never one of them," Buffy added, "Do you think she would want this?"

"Well, she wouldn't want you to chop her head off," the Persian grumbled wiping her eye.

"True enough. Guru Vasu, is there something you can do? Something, well, less invasive?"

"Their master is dead; the link has been severed. It should not be hard to de-animate the body," he nodded at his brother and the younger mystic started riffling through his bag, "Bring her here" Buffy was about to reach for Sheelah, but Samira jumped to her feet first

"I got it," she took the ex-slayer's hand and gently pulled her up, "Come on, it's alright"

From the back they looked like two best friends taking a stroll hand in hand. Buffy closed her eyes and slowly massaged her temples with her free hand.

"I guess from now on it's cremations all around," she said to no one in particular.

"No," Nasira responded with a strange sternness, "The daughters of Abraham3 do no defile their bodies with fire. We will divide the quad into plots and have the clerics from each church bless them appropriately. That will be their resting place; perhaps ours as well"

"You want to put a cemetery on the club's grounds?"

"Dead or alive, we take care of own"

Buffy looked over at the girl. She wasn't looking at Buffy when she spoke; her eyes were fixed on Sheelah as she was walked into the circle inscribed on the ground with white chalk. The chanting of the mystics permeated the air.

Having handed her companion off, Samira sat on a debris pile a few meters away.

"You look like crap," she remarked as Buffy took a seat next to her.

"Better than dead thanks to you. Not your run of the mill motivational technique, but you did what you had to. You are a natural leader"

"No," Samira replied grimly keeping her eyes down, "I'm a natural manipulator"

"Same diff. Except a leader takes responsibility for the actions of people she motivates. You are not there yet, but you are getting there. I like what I see and so do the others. After the whole Alice fiasco they need someone they like and trust"

Samira finally lifted her head and stared at the blood stained face of the Slayer

"What about Stefka?"

Buffy sighed taking a moment to properly compose the not so simple answer.

"My hope is that with a little more time she will get to the point where I feel she can fully resume her duties. That's the hope. As for the facts, the facts are that right now you are the best woman for the job."

"I see," Samira nodded understandingly, "In that case I'm going to have to insist you turn the TVs back on"

"Are you for real?" Buffy jaw fell open at girl's blatant audacity.

"If you want to keep punishing me you can think of something else, but without school and patrols the girls are going stir crazy inside. I'm not saying the soaps are going to fix the crappy morale right up, but it will make things a little easier"

"You are right, I wasn't thinking. I'll have the satellite's plugged in as soon as we get back. But God help you, Samira, if you take credit for this!"

The Persian smirked, but the smile was wiped clean the moment Sheelah's body fell lifeless to the ground.

"We are finished," said guru Vasu, "What would you like to do with her now?"

"Nothing. Get us to the inn," Buffy answered, "I'll call Willow. We'll teleport all the bodies directly to Rome; I don't want to deal with customs."

"With your permission, I would like to move them to the lower chambers until then. The Necromancer weapon as well," he pointed to the scythe lying at the far wall where Buffy tossed it, "Lady Willow will no doubt want to examine it"

"She will want to examine it," Buffy repeated pensively, "No doubt. Destroy it. Willow is the last person I want touching that thing"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In the wee hours of the night the veranda outside the inn was actually a pleasant place to be. At triple the rate the owners were happy to set up plates of freshly cooked rice and naan even at this hour. For over twenty minutes the girls waited patiently for their missing leader. When finally Dasha was dispatched to get her she found Buffy blissfully asleep in the bathtub.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The wee hours arrived at the Rome gymnasium two hundred and sixty minutes later and about eighty minutes prior to the phone call that pulled grouchy Willow out of her bed. To exert herself physically was an innate urge of every slayer. With nightly patrols scrapped because of the war the night owl girls added late workouts to their usual routine. They would start to clear around three in the morning, while the early risers rarely showed up before six. Unlike the veranda at the inn the slayer gym was at its emptiest between four and five and as Alice expected there was just one person at the machines. From the ajar door she watched as Stefka pressed three hundred kilos with her right leg.

"Looks like you ready to go back out there"

Stefka glanced over at the British girl and resumed her exercise.

"Not my decision"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize Buffy is keeping you grounded"

The blonde stopped for good and gave the visitor a longer stare.

"Is there something you want, Alice?"

"It's been made clear to me that I have no more friends. I wanted to check if I still had my enemies," the girl smiled crookedly.

"I was never your enemy"

"I know, just wanted to open with a joke"

Being the only person in the gym Stefka kept most of the lights off. Now that Alice was only a meter in front of her she could fully make out her face. She hasn't seen her in a while, not since the big revelation. The girl lost weight; there were bruises under her eyes either from lack of sleep or a punch, perhaps both. That grimace deforming her lips that she tried to pass off as a smile was the worst of all.

"So is there something you came here to say?" Stefka prodded her suddenly silent visitor.

"Yes. Do you mind terribly?"

"If you feel like talking perhaps Dr. Friedman would be a better choice"

"No," the girl shook her head, "I want you, if it's no bother"

"Why me?"

Alice sat down on a bench press opposite Stefka, but faced the floor instead. Her posture was almost fetal with the back arched so high her head was only slightly above her knees.

"I'm an army brat. You are the closest thing we have to a chaplain"

"I'm not a priest, Alice, I can't absolve you of your sins. Nor would I if I could"

The shocked expression that greeted her came as no surprise. Stefka watched unblinking the face across as the eyes welled up with tears and once square jaw trebled like a leaf.

"Is that it? Am I really that horrible? Beyond even God's forgiveness?" Alice stuttered out in between sobs.

"No one is beyond forgiveness. But to be forgiven you must repent and you haven't. You are not sorry for what you did"

"I'm not sorry? How can you say that? I would die to bring them back, any of them!"

"I believe you," it was not easy for Stefka to keep calm as Alice was being tossed between grief, fear, and rage, "I'm sure you blame yourself for getting manipulated in this way. You are ready to die to undo the idiocy you committed. Only being an idiot is not a sin. Being a traitor is. That the information you stole fell into Leshii's hands is irrelevant. You agreed, knowingly and willingly, to betray your sisters to the British. That is your sin and you are not sorry you did it"

"I didn't betray anybody," Alice replied wiping her eyes. She was a lot calmer now, "In case it escaped you, I am British. It is my duty to serve my country"

"You are a slayer, the chosen. The duty that matters is the one God has given you"

"God also made me British"

"God doesn't draw lines on a map! Man does. Man's laws say we are strangers. Man's petty squabbles and grievances say we are enemies. Yet we are all here under one roof because God chose us. God made us sisters, but you chose allegiance to Man instead."

"God's law over Man's law, is it?"

"Always"

"I see. Well, I know you are not shy about not sparing the rod," Alice smirked, "So when will you be breaking out stoning and slavery?"

"Are you talking about this?" Stefka asked picking up her Bible that lay at the foot of the machine, "This isn't God, it's a book," with that she tossed the volume into the dark part of the gym, "Do you really think that all of God's eternal wisdom can fit into fifteen hundred pages? Do you think our language is even capable of expressing it? Any of it? God is here," she said putting her finger to the chest of the startled girl sitting across, "He is here, inside you, speaking to you. Always speaking to you. If you are like me and reading someone else's attempt to record His words helps you focus and hear Him, great. If sitting on a rock and staring into nothingness does it for you, even better: you saved a tree," Stefka stopped, struggling to tell if anything she said was getting through.

"Buffy doesn't believe in God"

"Is that what you think?" the blonde slayer smiled. If Alice was challenging her she must be paying attention.

"That's what she says. More or less"

"More or less is right. Buffy doesn't need to believe because she knows. Our religions seem so silly to her because her understanding of God is far greater than any text; greater than words period. There's nothing she could say, so she says nothing. It is a feeling she can only express through her actions"

"Conveniently leaving you to make up whatever you want," the Brit scoffed.

"Imagine Heaven, Alice. Not what it looks like, but how it feels. Peace, comfort, love. Now imagine being thrust here, into this world, full of conflict, misery, and pain. You can go back, if you like. Two quick flicks across your wrists and you know exactly what's waiting for you. Not assume or have faith, but _know_. Yet you choose to stay here. You choose to fight a war that can't really be won or lost regardless of whether you die now or a thousand years from now. Imagine this, Alice, and tell me once again that Buffy does not _believe_," Stefka got up and walked into the shadowy forest of treadmills.

"Do you?" Alice spoke as the girl emerged with the Bible back in her hands, "I came by your room first. Your candle is not there anymore."

Stefka sat back down on the exercise machine, setting the book next to her.

"You misunderstand," she started slowly. Her voice was drained of the passion that filled it a minute ago, but the smile on her face was the widest yet, "My prayers were answered. I wanted God to show me the way to my brother and he has. The fog that has clouded my eyes for so many years has been lifted. My brother is dead. He was a gentle boy who loved me and deserved a far better and far longer life than he got. He was brutally murdered eleven years ago. I don't know what crawled out of his grave. I don't know why it obsesses over me, but I know it is not my brother."

"You are right," Alice spoke softly looking into the bottomless depth of the blue eyes across, "With the lives we live sometimes you just have to believe to go on"

"It's true, we are not meant to have happy lives as most people would define one," said Stefka, "Instead we were given something else most people long for, a purpose. Only purpose cannot truly exist without faith. You have to believe that something Good and Eternal exists in all of us, call it what you like. It gives us strength, guides us, shows us right from wrong. Find it inside yourself, Alice," Stefka placed the Bible in the girl's lap, "Maybe this will be the way, maybe not, but unless you find it you will not survive," she placed her foot back onto the lever and pushed down. The full stack of weight bars rang out a steady rhythm against the metal base; one for one matching the footsteps exiting the gym.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When Giles turned the last corner of the corridor leading to his office he saw a young woman sitting in front of the door. Judging by the fold up table and chair this was full fledged stakeout. Alerted by his footsteps the girl looked up, then, grabbing the stack of notebooks in front of her, quickly put herself in between the Watcher and the entryway.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Giles," she greeted him with a nervous smile, "Miss Summers came by about ten minutes ago. She is waiting for you inside"

"Of course she is," Giles thought to himself, "I wasn't aware I've been assigned a secretary," he said out loud.

"I'm not...My name is..."

"I know who you are, Miss Saunders"

"Of course you do," the girl smiled awkwardly. She was average height, about a meter sixty eight. Her very short ash colored hair was brushed to the sides to give a more rounded look to her rather sharp facial features. The circular lenses of her glasses served a similar purpose, as well as mitigated extreme farsightedness in her distinctly gray eyes, "I apologize for ambushing you like this, but I've been trying to schedule an appointment for the last two weeks.. "

"I'm very busy, Miss Saunders"

"Of course you are, but this is extremely important. It's about my thesis..."

"I'm sure you will get the highest marks, Miss Saunders, you always do, now if you excuse me," Giles motioned with his hand, but the girl would not budge.

"This has nothing to do with my marks, Mr. Giles. Have you read my thesis? No, of course not, why would you?" Nikki rattled out the answer to her own question, "It explores the Potential to Slayer conversion patterns; temporal, geographical. The point is there hasn't been a new slayer located since February, of which you are no doubt aware. Since there are still hundreds of thousands of Potentials we just assumed that at one thousand and twenty seven we reached some kind of slayer carrying capacity."

"Miss Saunders," Giles tried unsuccessfully to interrupt the prattling woman

"But the problem with this hypothesis," she continued unabated, "Is that due to recent casualties we are well below that number, yet no new slayers have been found. It's all here," she thrust the stack of notebooks in her hands towards Giles who instinctively accepted the pile,

"The reason we have no new slayers, Miss Saunders, is that we are not looking"

"This is not entirely correct," the girl disagreed, "While most psychic resources have been reallocated to the war effort, periodic scans are being done. Based on my calculations we should have found at least ten new slayers by now, not none. I have also tested the theory that Miss Rosenberg spell has degraded over time and while there has been some power loss..."

"Miss Saunders," Giles raised his voice very much intent on putting an end to this conversation, "I'm sure having just recently graduated you are still drawn to the world of theory and academia, but as you mentioned so offhandedly, we are in the middle of a war. Perhaps it would behoove you to spend more time protecting the lives of the slayers we have and less fretting over them being not as easily replaceable as you would like," He dumped the papers back into the young Watcher's hands, but the woman's fingers have gone completely numb. The stack fell through and spilled all over the floor. Without saying a word Nikki squatted to the ground and started picking them up.

"Now, as you have pointed out earlier, I'm need inside. Good day, Miss Saunders"

"Good day," Nikki whispered, but Giles already shut the door behind him.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As he stood there in the doorway of his office, Giles realized that he was fortunate to have run into Nikki when he did. The altercation would serve as a much needed warm up for the real bout. He knew exactly why Buffy was sitting in the chair across from his desk. She probably doesn't realize it, but the conversation they were about to have was months in the making.

"Congratulations on your India campaign. I only hope you are here to boaster"

"I wish," Buffy smiled, "Actually, I'm here to fire Robson, but I can't find him anywhere. I think the little sleazoid is avoiding me. Do you mind taking it up? Technically he is your report"

"That's not going to happen"

"I knew it," Buffy sighed, "It's one of those boss things I got to do myself, isn't it? Alright, I'll schedule another appointment, but if he doesn't show up this time, I'm firing him over email"

"No, you are not"

"I know, I know," Buffy rolled her eyes, "It's the kind of thing you do in person, but I have other things to do, too. Maybe I could ask Willow to cast a locator spell on him.." she mused.

"You are not firing Robson"

Third time proved to be the charm as what Giles has been saying finally got through to Buffy. She straightened up in her seat and glared at the Watcher.

"Is that a fact?"

"Robson reports to me, not to you"

"And you report to me"

"And if you like you can fire me and have my replacement fire Robson, but as long as I'm sitting in this chair he is staying where he is" The words hit Buffy like a mallet. She stared at Giles with an equal measure of anger and confusion unable to conjure up a proper response. They budded heads countless times over the last few months, but now the roles were suddenly reversed. Giles has staked out his position and it was up to Buffy to move him

"He is an essential part of this organization," the Watcher continued, "I will not have him summarily dismissed based on a personality conflict"

"'A personality conflict'? That son of a bitch is an essential part of every dysfunction of this organization! He's been sabotaging me for months!"

"I assume you have specific instances in mind"

"How about the specific instance that broke the camel's back?" Buffy hastily pulled a wrinkled printout from her pocket and straightens it out on Giles' desk. Pulling repeatability on the paper calmed her somewhat. Perhaps he just needs an explanation and everything will fall into its proper place, "Do you know what this is?"

"This is the mind scanning memo he circulated to the slayers," the Watcher answered giving the text a brief glance.

"I specifically forbid this and he did it anyway!"

"If memory serves me right, you forbade any order compelling a slayer to a mind scan. This memo explicitly states the procedure is voluntary"

"Voluntary my ass! The way it's phrased anyone who doesn't submit might as well be walked out and shot! That's why he sent it when I was away, he knew I wouldn't allow it"

"I agree, it is creatively phrased, but it does not contradict the wording of your orders"

"It damn well contradicts the meaning!"

She still didn't get what was happening. Giles locked his eyes on the face of his former pupil and spoke, carefully enunciating every word.

"Robson is a senior official of the Council. It is not his job to guess what you mean, but to exercise his best judgment within the parameters you set out. I'm going to venture a guess that is exactly what happen in every instance of his alleged "disobedience". I'm sorry to say, Buffy, but if you are finding Robson's actions are counter to your intentions it is because he was not convinced of the propriety of the course you chose and because your orders were not sufficiently well phrased to compel him. I will not let him be punished for what is clearly a failure of leadership on your part"

The furious response he expected did not materialize. Quite the opposite, the anger vanished completely from Buffy's face. Her expression was that of pure hurt.

"I can't believe you are taking his side," she said softly.

"God damn it, Buffy!" Giles slammed his fist on his desk, "I'm not your father! I'm not," he added calmer, "Nothing would make me prouder, but I'm not. And as such, it is not my job to take your side. It was so once. As your Watcher I did my best to protect you, to help you grow as a Slayer, and as a person. You certainly have grown. As you so eloquently put it when you shut the door in my face a year and a half ago, I have nothing more to teach you. It wasn't easy to accept, but it is true. You are a powerful and independent woman; you don't need me, but they do. Above all else, including you, my duty now is to protect the well being of the young slayers"

"That's my job, too"

"Is that the job you were doing when you risked their lives to save Dawn?"

Buffy looked away as her eyes welled up.

"That's not fair"

"No, it is not. It is not fair to be forced to choose between your duty and your family, but you were, and you will be again. In times like these someone has to confront you with the reality of what you are doing."

"I see," Buffy nodded trying to get a hold of her emotions, "And how exactly does protecting private thoughts of teenage girls hurt anybody?"

"Your charges in Rome are overwhelmed by the tragedy of the actual assault to fully show it, but if you took a little time you would notice the paranoia permeating the other chapters. Everyone is looking for the next Alice. That's why we had so many volunteers, the girls want to lift themselves above suspicion. Even if we find no other agent this will get rid of the fear and establish the trust we must have to win. Trust, Buffy. Robson is neither stupid nor evil. You have to find a way to work with him. A leader of your stature needs to be able deal with people who don't like her in ways other than getting rid of them"

"There's only so far I can bend before I'm bending over, Giles"

"You are the Chairman of the Council and if he has forgotten it then you should remind him, as will I. We have a meeting scheduled at four this afternoon. I'm happy to let you two use this time to come to some kind of understanding"

"Fine, " Buffy rose from her seat, "But I'm retracting this memo. We'll find some other way to get the girls back on track."

"That is your prerogative"

"And since he is your report, this is a request, not an order: move him somewhere where he's not dealing with my slayers directly. Make him a liaison to the Home Office or something"

"I will consider it," Giles nodded understandingly.

"Thank you," she walked a few steps towards the door then turned. She hasn't noticed until now just how much older he's gotten. It has been almost eight years since she first laid eyes on this kind bespectacled face when it emerged from behind the Sunnydale library bookshelves. So many lines were crisscrossing it that weren't there before. There was harshness to his features now, wear. Only the eyes were unchanged, "I'd be proud to, you know, if you were," she spoke quietly, "You are not, I understand that. I just still want to be able to trust you."

"You can always trust me to do the right thing"

Buffy lingered for a few seconds as though pondering what was said then left without any response. As the door behind her closed, the book case across from Giles slid letting Robson out of the secret passageway. He sat down in the chair just vacated by the Slayer and poured himself a quarter glass of scotch.

"I suppose I must thank you for safeguarding my position"

"Buffy may have overreacted, but her grievances are legitimate," Giles replied rearranging folders on his desk, "You have been obstructing her work."

"As we agreed we would"

"On the assumption we would conduct the war against the First in her stead. With all the Watcher resources now being devoted to battling Leshii all there's left is interference. It must stop. I want you to order your associates to execute Buffy's requests as they come. I still want to be kept abreast of what she's doing, but she will no longer be censored by you or anyone else. Is that understood?"

"My, Rupert," the watcher smiled, "If you want to preside over the Shadow Council you've only to ask and I'll be happy to put your candidacy up for an immediate vote"

"You can keep you cloak and dagger games, William, as long as they don't run afoul of the actual purpose of the actual Council. Take Buffy's orders seriously starting with the four o'clock meeting"

It wasn't the words themselves that irked Robson so much, but the lack of any effort on Giles' part to disguise the contempt in his voice.

"And, should she order me to, do I tell her that you were the one who drafted the memo?"

Giles set the folders down

"If just a single slayers dies because of your intrigue I will take you down without a second thought, even if it takes me with you.

"I don't doubt it," Robson let go the now empty glass and stood up, "It is why I wanted you on the Council. As our predecessors made evident, in the daily struggles it is all too easy to loose sight of why we are here in the first place. You are our compass, Rupert, and I will steer whichever way you point."

Giles watched Robson walk out the same door Buffy did ten minutes earlier. He stood up to both them, yet each one left quite confident of which side he is really on. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. If only he knew which one of them was right.

1Jewish American Princess. A derogatory term for young upper class Jewish women primarily used in urban centers of North-East United States, such as New York and Boston

2A Hindu god of fire

3'Children of Abraham' is a term used to commonly reference Jews and Muslims, and occasionally, Christians.


	13. Chapter 13: End Game Part I

**Chapter 13: **

**End Game. Part I**

It was a dive in every sense of that word. A steep narrow staircase took her down an equivalent of three stories below ground, but the ceiling in the tavern was still uncomfortably low even for Buffy's small stature. The clientele was mixed about even between humans and demons. It reminded her of Willy's place back in Sunnydale only bigger, darker, and older. The stone walls seemed to ooze ancient creepiness. The patrons were all looking at her out of the corner of their eyes, but tried to carry on with their drink or conversation as though they haven't noticed. There were no rookies here. Each demon knew that if the Slayer has come for someone in particular it was probably not them, but if she was fishing for information then running would be the second worst thing they could do in this situation.

"Well, aren't you a hot a little number," one of the drunk humans slurred reaching for Buffy's behind as she passed by. This was the first thing.

It occurred to Buffy that this used to be a medieval dungeon. The booths were individual cells; the curvature of the walls and the stones themselves were designed to absorb the sound. The customers at the far tables didn't even flinch as she slammed the drunkard's face into the wooden table. The unconscious man slid under it as she let go his wrist. The location of the bar stand was probably the torture chamber, laid out in such a way as to carry the sound instead. The long gone denizens of these tiny cells would be forced to listen to the cries of pain and agony emanating from that focal point much like she was made to endure that Italian hip-hop blaring off the radio behind the bar. Buffy climbed onto the stool and looked at the figure to her left. The man seemed passed out on the counter; empty shot glasses formed a fence between his head and the bartender.

"Hey," she said softly, gently shaking his shoulder. The man groaned and with visible effort turned his head sideways. After a few seconds something resembling a smile crawled over his face.

"I know you! I think," the Immortal paused and squinted, "Do I? I mean the chances of you actually being here are pretty small, while the amount of tequila I drank is pretty large"

"It's really me," Buffy smiled, "And sharing your sentiment. When I first walked in I thought Willow messed up her spell, but here you are. More surprisingly not looking that out of place. So what came first, the outfit or the choice of establishment?"

Mortimer grimaced as he smacked his lips a few times trying to get a handle on the dry mouth that seemed to extend all the way down to his stomach and up his nostrils.

"You know how they say: you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here? Well, they are not they. Or is it 'them'? Doesn't matter. No such thing as proper English. I remember it all, you know, how it was. Every decade of every century you keep twisting the language, slapping new words on it every which way. What do you get? You get this," He stared down at himself, "This was a four thousand euro suit three weeks ago"

"If there's one positive about the smell of alcohol is that it covers all the others."

"Sure, let's pile some more put downs on the depressed drunk"

"No!" Buffy raised her finger in protest, "You don't get to make me feel guilty. There's not having the cake and eating it. You ended it, not me, so stop mopping about it!"

"It's not about you, it's about me," Mortimer pushed an empty shot glass in the direction of the bartender, "It was always about me, and apparently always will be"

"That's a little too deep for me right now. Besides, the reason I'm here is that I need your help"

"Unless your problem is tequila that's about to go bad, I'm not your man"

"I need information, Mortimer"

"I don't know anything"

"But you know people who do"

The Immortal emptied the shot glass into his mouth and pushed it back for another refill.

"I have nothing against playing the courier for you except that it involves me getting off this stool and the only time I do that is if need to use the john. Sometimes not even then"

Buffy chuckled uncomfortably. "I'm choosing to believe it was just a really funny joke and move on. If you can't play the intermediary that's fine by me, I would actually prefer the direct route. Not that I want to welch on your compensation. Just tell me what you want. I can pay for you getting plastered here till the end of your supposedly endless existence. How's that?"

"I don't think the direct route will work for you," the Immortal mumbled giving a close examination to the rather dried up lime wedge that came with his refill.

"I'm sure a lot of them are quite unsavory, but the so called legitimate channels haven't been very agreeable with me, either. As long as your people are not into anything too evil I think we can work something out."

Mortimer shrugged and squeezed the lime into his mouth.

"Wolfram&Hart is my people"

"Well, I figured as much, with all those fancy folders, and dividers, and tables of contents. What I want to know is who do you have on the inside, what positions, and how do I contact them?"

"You don't understand. I don't have anybody on the inside. Well, I have everybody on the inside. My source is Wolfram&Hart. I ask for information and they give it to me"

"What do you mean they give it to you?" Buffy stared at Mortimer, "Are you saying you work for Wolfram&Hart?"

"No. If anything, they work for me"

"Please don't tell me you a Senior Partner!"

"That would be funny, wouldn't it?" the man chuckled, "I'm not. I'm not even a client, in the strictest sense. It's all part of a deal we've had for the last few millennia. They give me access to their archives and some use of their labs and personnel, and in exchange I leave them alone"

"So you were one of the good guys once and then they bought you off"

"No, they just bugged me. Remember how I said trying to kill me was a sport once? It was them trying to see how my immortality works. I took a few shots in good humor, but enough was enough, and I went after them. Can't stop a lone assassin willing to give up his life. Don't remember who said it first. Might have been me, actually. At any rate, it's true," Mortimer mused, "I did some quality damage to Wolfram&Hart proper, but mostly I went after their clients. They were pretty successful at protecting the big fish, so I dropped to mid-range. Their client list is the size of a small country, and the way a country protects its citizens is through deterrent, the assurance that if you do something you'll be caught and punished. Doesn't work on me. All of a sudden being a client of Wolfram&Hart became very dangerous and fiends took their business elsewhere. I thoroughly ruined the firm's reputation. Competition bulked up, even the big clients started switching. In less than three decades Wolfram&Hart found themselves embroiled in wars on a dozen fronts, struggling to stay afloat," the Immortal smiled clearly revealing in the awe plastered all over the Slayer's face, " They sued for peace, and I obliged. I'm a lover, not a fighter, just thought they should be taught a lesson," He reached for another drink when Buffy grabbed him by the shoulder.

"You had a chance to destroy Wolfram&Hart and you just decided to pass?"

"Haven't you been listening? It doesn't matter. If I had destroyed Wolfram&Hart some Manbear&Pig1 would just take their place. They could have been worse. They certainly sound worse."

"So not the point!"

"No, the point is that it all balances out. If you want to change something, really change it, you must pay a price. All these things I can do, they add up to a lot of power, more than you realize. But I will never make a difference because I will not sacrifice. I'm not a hero like you"

"I was never looking for a hero, just a good man"

"I'm not sure I'm that either," Mortimer sighed lifting up his shot glass for the umpteenth time. He paused in the air then sat it back down untouched, "Coming here was a bad call, Buffy"

"I didn't get everything I wanted," she shrugged, "It's hardly a tragedy"

"I suppose you got some enjoyment out of it"

"No, I didn't"

Mortimer turned his head to the side slightly. "Be honest," he twisted his lips into a smirk, "You wanted to see me miserable"

"You want to know what I wanted to see? I wanted to see you with another woman, some pretty, mindless thing, laughing your asses off. I wanted to see you drinking, but less, and dancing, in short having lots of very obvious fun. Then our eyes would meet and I see that you don't mean any of it. You realize the emptiness of it all and the harder you try to hide it the more it shows. That would give me satisfaction. This, this is sad and pathetic. You are better than this cliché. I'm better than having had feelings for someone capable of this cliché. If I wasn't in the middle of a war and an apocalypse I'd whip you into shape starting right this moment, but since you are immortal with an infinite supply of time, money, and brain and liver cells I'll concentrate on more pressing things. I'm coming back here, though, bet on it"

The smirk on the Immortal's face gave way to an actual smile.

"You really are an obnoxiously good person," he said as the skin on his forehead suddenly furrowed into wrinkles, "I think there was something I wanted to tell you ever since you came in, but I forget what"

"You have my number," Buffy jumped off her stool, "Call me when you remember. Or if you don't, you can still call me. If you feel like you need to talk"

"What would I talk about?"

"How should I know?" Buffy shrugged and headed out. She was almost to the top of the staircase when her cellphone rang. She smiled at the caller ID and flipped it open, "Yes?"

"I remembered what I wanted to say," Mortimer responded sleepily, "It's 'duck'"

"Duck?" Buffy pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it thoroughly perplexed. Duck! She dropped to the ground just as a body flew over her head. The green demon grabbed on to the rail and steered himself around in midair, landing just a couple of steps in front of the Slayer.

"Agile little monkey, aren't you?" Buffy has seen his kind around, but she never fought one. The demon was only a tad taller than her and almost as slender. From what little Buffy could remember about the species they were the coyotes of the underworld. Clever, but only dangerous to small dogs and unattended children. That it would attack a Slayer was beyond ridiculous. Perhaps he's a diversion. As Buffy glanced around for the "real" threat, the demon lunged at her again. Completely unprepared for this clearly suicidal frontal assault she just shoved it away clumsily. This time the demon scrambled to his feet and ran.

"You make no sense!" Buffy shouted frustrated and gave chase. The green heals glistening in the moonlight as the demon sprinted over to the nearest tall buildings and started climbing up the vertical wall. The Slayer grabbed a loose cobblestone and launched it after the fleeing pest.

"This so sucks," Buffy spoke out loud looking over the splattered corpse, "If you weren't as a good a climber you'd have a shorter fall and lived, and we'd both be much happier." She poked the body with her shoe trying to see if it had anything in its pockets without actually touching the slimy thing. There was a bulge on the left side that she carefully nudged into the open.

"What do you know, we have the same phone," she smiled picking it up, "Wait a second!" she grabbed for her jeans pocket. It was empty, sliced at the bottom. "Great. Two hundred euro jeans for a fifty euro phone. It would have been cheaper just to give it to him." If Buffy was planning to wonder what would the demon want with her phone she didn't get to. The stone she threw two minutes ago came rushing towards her face. She dodged quickly and sprinted into the open street. Judging by the angle of the telekinetic pull her new opponent was on the roof of one of the buildings across. The Slayer stood still for a minute, but could see or hear no one. She stepped off the sidewalk and started in the calculated direction, when a strange anxious feeling gripped her heart and echoed in her feet. Wrong way! She darted back into the alley and hid behind a small brick protrusion of one of the building's walls until the little needles in her extremities faded away.

Warlocks. As much as she loved Willow she despised having spellcasters as enemies. Fireballs or telekinesis she could live with; those were things she could dodge. Even force fields weren't too bad as few could withstand the Slayer's punches for long. It was the curses and hexes that made Buffy's blood boil, ever since eight years ago one almost did so literally. Cast directly upon their target there's no physical defense against hexes. Protection magic may work, but not all the time. Possession of a personal item would essentially render you at the mercy of an even barely competent witch, but a good one may sometimes do without one. A powerfully sorcerer, like Zemfira, needs just the line of sight to make Buffy into a wall decoration. The tingling sensation in her feet was the same one she remembered feeling all over her body as she looked into the black eyes of the vampire witch. Whoever it is on the roof, he or she seems to have similar abilities. Buffy peeked cautiously over the wall. The building from which she was attacked stood about thirty five meters away; a good seven second sprint. It takes Willow about four seconds to cast a line of sight spell, so to be safe she needs a route that can give her cover every fifteen meters or so. Back home it wouldn't have been a problem, but this was Rome. Damn those Italians with their useless little scooters! The biggest thing on the whole street was a City-Coupe at the end of the block. She had no choice, but to go straight for the building entrance and hope this particular warlock isn't even half as good as Willow. Pushing off with both of her feet Buffy exploded from behind the wall and rushed down the sidewalk. As she did she saw the rows of parked scooters on both sides rise into the air. This was not going to be pleasant. Buffy slouched forward a bit and shielded her head with her forearms. By the time she made it to her target she literally flew into the doorway with the help of a red Vespa slamming directly into her back. The Slayer crawled from under the metal and wood debris and brushed herself off. In a few hours she'll be covered with bruises, but it didn't feel like anything was broken. Back home it could have been so much worse. Bless those Italians with their light little scooters!

Eight flights of stairs later Buffy was dodging a fire ball that greeted her as she exited onto the roof. She could see her opponent clearly now. He was standing next to the doorway of the second building stairwell. If it wasn't for his right hand being engulfed in flames he looked like a very nondescript middle aged man. Trying to distract him as she covered the distance between them Buffy sent her stake flying into the horn rimmed glasses of the warlock. A snap of his fingers splintered the weapon, but instead of scattering, the wooden needles proceeded on target, pinning his clothes to the door in a dozen places.

"Glad you could make it," Buffy smiled glancing over her shoulder. The air behind her wobbled as Willow abolished her invisibility spell.

"He's all yours. The binding spell should prevent him from casting any more magic."

"Then why is he still smiling?" As the Slayer took a cautious step forward, the warlock's form collapsed into thousands of worms of various sizes.

"No fair!" the witch cried out, "Grab him, Buffy!"

"You grab him," the Slayer backed away in disgust. In a matter of seconds the worms squirming all over the roof filtered through the cracks under the door and in between tiles. Running up to the swiftly disappearing pile Willow managed to snap up the last handful.

"Something for my trouble," she grumbled trying to keep the worms from squeezing through her fingers, "It's just bugs, Buffy. The least you could do was step on some"

"I'm a Slayer, not an exterminator. What are you going to do with the creepy crawlers? Location spell?"

"No, interrogation," the witch deadpanned.

"Really? Oh, good one," Buffy snickered, "I need to go back to the bar. I think when Mortimer said 'it was bad call coming here' he meant them. They were probably staking him out to see if I showed up. He must have spotted them some time ago, but was too drunk to remember right away. Come with? I may need help sobering him up"

"Want me to drop a worm in his glass?"

"No, he might think it came with tequila and eat it," Buffy chuckled, "Here, let's get you a container," she knelt to pick up an discarded coke bottle lying near the door when something shimmered in the groove between the roof tiles. She picked up the object and stared at it for a few seconds, "Then again, I may know who they are, too" She extend her palm to Willow. Nestled in the middle was a golden ring with a seal of a stylized flame.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The book case turned ninety degrees letting Giles back into the secret lounge. The low hanging smokey mist gave it an eerie familiar look. Only instead of pungent odor of Robson's Cuban cigar, a delicately sweet smell of Parliaments permeated the air. How many of these did Dawn have to go through to create this haze?

"I apologize it took so long," the Watcher spoke taking a seat across from the girl, "It seems every one of the Caretakers has moved on; not surprising given their duplicity, but I'm confident Mr. Kim can find them again."

"He'll find corpses, if that," Dawn pensively swirled her glass of cognac before setting it back on the end table to her left, "I don't think they broke the agreement. I think Leshii killed them"

"If Leshii killed the Caretakers of Taraka, the assassins would be skinning him alive instead of coming after us"

"Not necessarily. The Caretakers exist to take contracts and distribute payments. They are respected, but they are not leaders of the Order per se. Leshii could argue that by striking a deal with us to refuse a fair contract from him the Caretakers were derelict in their duties and violated the spirit of the Assassin Order"

"Perhaps, but the Order cannot function without Caretakers"

"The job requirements are pretty straight forward. Access to an untraceable financial network, large amount of money for collateral, and a reputation for honest dealings..."

"Leshii as the Caretaker of Taraka," Giles was quick to latch onto the implication. He signed and slowly removed his glasses, "This would be quite distressing, indeed. Either way we need confirmation"

Like a spring Dawn's arm whipped across the table. The sound of shattered glass pierced the air.

"I should have seen this coming! God, this was so obvious!"

"It was hardly obvious, and yet you correctly anticipated Leshii's overture to the Order. You cannot expect to get every single detail every single time"

"I get the direction right, but not how far he is willing to go," Dawn spoke softly now, staring at her cigarette flicker in the puddle of brandy; the scattered shards of crystal reflected the light over and over, "His moves seemed brazen, but they were always a sure thing. His aversion to risk made him predictable. All I had to do was calculate as far ahead as he does. Not anymore. He has adjusted to me, raised his game, and all I do is get angry. I'm sorry about your glass"

"Pay it no mind, I have plenty," Giles answered standing next to the liquor cabinet carved out in the middle of the book case, "That was, however, my lone bottle of brandy. How do you feel about scotch?"

Instead of replying Dawn pulled a flask out of her jacket and placed it on the table.

"You don't have to anticipate every eventuality as long as you do the important ones," Giles smiled. He set the snifter next to the girl, opened the flask and filled it a third of a way.

"This is not my best. I can do better"

"I know you can, but you must stop holding yourself back," the Watcher responded handing her the glass. Dawn picked it up with two fingers and brought it to her face inhaling the aroma. She then moved it out toward the light and swirled the glass slowly back and forth.

"You are right," the girl finally answered. A smile slowly lifted the corners of her mouth as she stared at the dark brown liquid peacefully sloshing in her hand, "I think it's time we were the ones to venture outside our comfort zone._"_

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

When she heard sneaker heals thumping down the staircase above Buffy canceled the text message she has almost finished on her cell phone and got up from the step she was sitting on.

"I see someone has finally decided to check her voice mail"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Willow crooned from above, "I'm sorry," she added one more time coming face to face with Buffy.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's go," said Buffy nudging the witch towards the artifact storage door.

"What did Dawn want to see us about?"

"I don't know. I spent the half hour waiting for you on those cold and uncomfortable steps"

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to send you angry messages every three minutes and there's no reception down there, you know that."

"You could have just summoned me"

"Oh no," Buffy shook her head, "I'm not abusing this telepathic thing you set up. If I start dragging you out willy-nilly you might not show up when I really need it" She stopped and turned as she felt Willow grab hold of her hand.

"That will never happened"

Buffy smiled and lightly squeezed her friend's hand back. They walked on side by side till they came upon Dawn sitting on the couch in the research area.

"Sorry we are late"

The girl looked up from the book she was reading, then looked at her watch.

"Yes, you are," she sat the volume on the coffee table face down and got up. The wide grin on her sister's face told Buffy that whatever it is she found it was big.

"Well? What did you want to show us?"

"This," Dawn pointed to the stand where the cloud of translucent element symbols hovered above the amulet.

"We've already seen it"

"No," the teen smiled wider, "You looked at it. I've stared at it for over a month myself, but I'm only seeing it now."

"You finally got your hands on Samira's weed haven't you?" Buffy was getting a tad annoyed.

"Why air?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why is air the element missing? If this was just a random breakup for security reason then each part of the amulet would have two elements. They don't. Ours has three and Leshii's has one. Why was it split this way? What makes air so different from the others?"

"Whatever it is I better hear it in the next thirty seconds"

"Two minutes," Dawn countered, "I made the brilliant discovery so I get to do the exposé. Anyway, I started by picturing it. Earth, water next to it. Fire under the earth, above earth. Water inside earth or earth under water, not sure how those magi viewed it. All of it pretty intermixed, but air is clearly on top. In fact, the entire planet is like a snow globe, surrounded by air with layers of other stuff inside it," she paused, then sighed at the blank looks of her listeners, "I'm not done. As I started thinking about layers it clicked. Paint. There's something else that separates air from others, air is colorless. Sure, it's usually represented with a trim of very light blue, but how else would you represent blankness on paper? In virtually every book the symbol for air is empty border while fire is red, the water is blue, and the earth is.."

"Brown," Buffy interrupted, "And I'm bored. Dawn, would you just..."

"Green!" Willow practically screamed her eyes growing wide, "The earth magic is considered life magic. It's symbol is the color of plants, green!"

"Okay," Buffy took a step back from the curiously excited witch, "I'm not insisting on brown. Green is prettier. If you want green it can be green"

"RGB, Buffy!"

"WTF, Willow?"

The witch dashed over to the amulet stand and thrust her finger at each of the elements.

"Red, green, blue, the three basic colors from which every other color can be derived. The relative size of each symbol represents the relative amount of each. Each one of these groupings is a color dot, like a pixel on a digital screen. This one here is orange. That one is brown. This area here is white. Do you understand now?"

"This is paint and the air is a canvas," Buffy started walking towards Willow as the realization jelled in her head, "We don't need Leshii's part of the amulet, do we? We can just plug this thing into a computer"

"It's a little more complicated than that," Dawn responded with a beaming smile, "But that's the basic idea"

"So simple as all things genius," Willow mumbled still gazing at the hovering mass of symbols.

"Cracking this thing was genius"

"I didn't say it wasn't"

"You are both amazing," Buffy rolled her eyes, "Now when can I have my picture?"

"Like I said, it's not that simple," Dawn poked the cloud with her finger and the elements swirled about, changing the pattern, "There's actually thousands, maybe millions of pictures. We'll have to find them all, render them, then somehow put them together in the right order."

"It could be a movie," Willow mused, "Twenty four shots per second would easily generate all that content"

"We'll be so lucky if these pictures are sequential, but they may not be. It could easily be some sort of a million piece jigsaw puzzle that we have hopelessly scrambled with two months of poking and prodding"

The witch turned to the girl, cute little furrows forming in her forehead.

"What we need is a pattern recognition program," she said pensively.

"Way ahead of you," Dawn grabbed the book she was reading earlier off the coffee table, pointing the cover at Willow, "Latest and greatest in the field of computer vision. I found a few chapters I think we can use"

"Show me," the redhead hurried over to the couch. Dawn plunked with the book next to her.

"What are you doing?" Willow suddenly shrieked noticing the Slayer fiddling with the cloud, "Didn't you hear what we just said? Stop poking it!"

"You've got your methods, I've got mine," Buffy replied dragging her hand across the cloud.

"Relax, Willow, " Dawn pulled the witch back into her seat, "After the things I've done to it over the last six weeks, it can't get anymore messed up. Now take a look at this chapter..."

As her two favorite eggheads huddled together over a book, Buffy spend the next thirty minutes watching the symbols float to and fro in response to her ministrations until she finally pulled her hand out and turned to the girls on the couch.

"Hey. Yo, geniuses!" she shouted failing to get a response to her original call, "I think I know what this is," she said once their eyes were on her, "It's that Earth Viewer2 thingie they keep using on CNN. You know, when they map all that Iraq fighting?"

"A map?" Willow repeated doubtfully

"A fancy map. Look," Buffy moved her hand left in a straight line, then right, "Scrolling east, scrolling west. Now north and south," she continued gesturing up and down now.

"I've seen this pattern before," Dawn responded dismissively, "There are a lot of things that are scrollable besides a map. If this was all it did I'd consider it, but it does other stuff, too"

"You mean, like this?" Buffy plunged her hand deep into the cloud completely transforming the number and groupings of the element symbols, "Pay attention to this little bit here, " she said pointing to the northeast corner, "Water symbols are bigger here, so it's blueish. Now watch," she twisted the hand inside the cloud then pulled it towards her slowly. "Now this entire quadrant is various shades of blue with a little smidgen of green in the middle. In a humble opinion of this non-genius, but still above average Slayer, we just zoomed in on a lake with a little island in it"

Without a word both girls got off the couch and joined Buffy in front of the amulet.

"It's a map," Dawn said at last.

"A fancy map," Willow echoed.

"Now that we are in agreement, when can I have it?"

"It's not that simple, Buffy"

"Still?"

"The map is ten thousand years old," Willow proceeded to explain, "That's pretty old, even by geological standards. The ice age was just beginning to recede. All these lakes, and rivers, and forests are probably deserts now. Those white areas are probably glaciers which are totally gone and replaced by new rivers, lakes, and forests. The coastlines are completely different, too. The mountains stood pat for the most part, but that's about it."

"Are you saying that after all the brilliance of our combined IQs we've got nothing useful?"

"We are not saying that," Dawn responded, "It's just not going to be simple. There are all kinds of ancient climate models out there, satellite images that show dried river and lake beds. We'll figure it out."

"What do you need exactly?"

"Let's see," Dawn hesitated, "Access to any government agency or a major university that does paleogeography research. NASA, for sure. Military satellite images would be great, they have the best resolution."

"We'll need people," said Willow

"Right, " Dawn nodded, "Programmers to put all that data together"

"Assuming you'll have all the access, people, and hardware you need in twenty four hours, how long till I get my map?"

"Three weeks, maybe four"

"Alright, Dawn, it's your baby, you run with it"

"Me? Computers are Willow's thing"

"Organizing is your thing and this sounds like a whole lot of organizing. I'm counting on you, Dawn. This is important apocalypse related stuff and you are in charge. If you need to use Willow, feel free to. You do have some time to spare, don't you?" Buffy turned to witch.

"I've been pretty busy with Parreli and that First dematerialization spell, but I should have a couple hours free most days"

"There you go. How's that going, by the way?"

"Almost done, actually," Willow stated proudly, "Should be ready for the first attempt in a week or two"

"Today is just full of excellent news!" Buffy smiled widely, "I feel like a celebratory dinner. Who's in?"

"I don't think I can," Dawn patted her belly, "I went through two bowls of popcorn working on this thing"

"Seriously?"

"It's your fault, you suggested it. If I had smoked hash during the search, like I wanted to originally, I'd have dinner with you. Several of them"

"Fine," Buffy chuckled, "But tomorrow morning I want to see you eating a nice healthy breakfast. With fruit, no less."

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

The trip up to the cafeteria took only seven minutes. It would have taken even less if Buffy didn't have to stop every couple of flights to let Willow catch up.

"Are you that hungry?" panted the redhead completely out of breath.

"I'm that excited"

"You must really like maps"

"I don't care about the map. Well, I care about the map. It's Dawn. This project is perfect for her. It's important enough for her to care about, it has nothing to do with Leshii, and it takes place entirely within the safe confines of the Club. It could not be more perfect!"

This was the last dinner shift and pizza trays were almost empty, except for the margherita. One of the most stressing culture shocks Buffy experienced when she moved to Rome was how shoddy the pizza was compared to what she was used to in Sunnydale. This was not what she expected from the nation that invented the culinary masterpiece. Sure, cheap delivery chains produced something that tasted akin to the cardboard it was brought in, but gourmet California pizza turned out to be head and shoulders above anything made here. With one exception, margherita. The deceptively simple one-topping concoction had no equal across the ocean. The unappreciative teenage slayers barely touched it, preferring its more colorful multi-topping cousins. More for Buffy. Grabbing the first slice off the giant pile on her plate she closed her eyes and savored the bite. Non-pasteurized cheese is banned in the States. That was secret. It's always about the cheese. Buffy opened her eyes as the pleasant sensation in her taste buds was overridden by the over-enunciated tone of the TV anchor.

"Please, put something else on, Willow"

"I want to watch the news"

"And I don't want to hear this again"

Willow pressed mute on the remote and turned to Buffy.

"You have to stop this. You can't feel guilty about everything anyone does that's even remotely Leshii related. So we happened to benefit from this operation, doesn't mean we are responsible."

"It wasn't an operation, it was a massacre. The unofficial toll is over three hundred, including women and kids. They weren't all working for Leshii"

"Leshii's capabilities in Rio have been crippled, if not destroyed outright. It's a good thing. You don't have to be happy about how it happened, but you shouldn't be blaming yourself, either. If a Brazilian army decides to clear gangs out of a Brazilian city they will do it regardless of how you feel. It's not like we told them to..." Willow stopped mid-sentence as her hand flashed towards the television. The broadcast froze momentarily, then ran in reverse.

"Look at Willow the human TiVo. If you can do this, why are we wasting thirty euros every month?" Buffy smile was not returned. The scrolling slowed down then stopped. Plastered on the forty inch screen was a column of personnel carriers with the commander's jeep in the middle of the convoy. Willow moved her thumb away from her index finger and the screen zoomed in on the car. Buffy dropped the slice back on her plate as her eyes transfixed on the person in the backseat next to the general.

"This is impossible," she mumbled

"It's her," Willow stated grimly.

"It can't be! This was yesterday, she was here yesterday. She was eating lunch with us right here! How could...?" Only one way it could. Buffy bolted from the table overturning her chair and rushed to the nearest staircase.

Transporter room one was two stories down from the cafeteria. The idea was Andrew's so he got to name the installations. Despite all the communication technology available to the Council, occasional face to face meetings were still necessary, but with Leshii capable of procuring bombs and missiles at will, flying was much too dangerous. Since Buffy already had witches guarding each of the offices Andrew proposed they employ ones with teleportation ability. An area next to their living quarters would be used for moving branch heads to and fro as well as emergency evacuation if necessary. Rome's teleportation pad, aka, 'transporter room one" was the common area of the two bedroom suite given to the resident witches. When Buffy burst inside, both of them, a warlock in his forties and his noticeably older wife were playing gin on top of the red pentagram inscribed into the floor.

"Alright, which one of you teleported my sister to Rio yesterday?"

"That would be me," the look on the Slayer's face made the warlock a bit hesitant with the answer.

"What is this, Greyhound? Do you see the sign?" Buffy pointed to the wall opposite the door, "From where I stand it says 'Authorized Personnel Only'. What does it say from over there?"

"Miss Summers was authorized"

"And you just took her word for it?"

The witches looked at each other for second then the woman got up and walked over to the filing cabinet next to the television. After rifling through the folders for a few seconds she pulled out a paper and handed it to Buffy.

"This is a blanket authorization allowing Miss Summers to be teleported to the location of her choosing at the time of her choosing. I believe all transporter rooms received one of these."

Buffy stared blankly at the signature on the form then crumpled the sheet in her fist.

"Watcher Academy. Now," she said stepping onto the pentagram.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

Buffy blew past the door of Giles' office without a word. She marched all the way to his desk and slammed the crumbled authorization fax right in front of the Watcher.

"Explain this!"

Giles glanced at the paper then at Buffy.

"Is there some ambiguity?" he asked calmly.

"It was supposed to be strictly controlled, limited exposure! Now you go behind my back and let Dawn loose full steam into this damn war?"

Giles removed his glasses and began to slowly wipe the lenses with the checkered handkerchief.

"What we agreed was that limited exposure would be healthier than complete isolation. We did not speak of what the limits should be. As for going behind you back, that is simply impossible since you were the one who gave me full discretion to handle Leshii as I see fit while you address the threat posed by the First Evil"

"Don't play word games with me, Giles! I would never allow Dawn to be used like this!"

"I don't think you understand, Buffy. I'm not using her. She is using me. Dawn is the one running this war, she has been from the start. My role is merely to legitimize her orders. We were concerned our law enforcement allies would not take her seriously otherwise. Although as they see her in action it becomes less and less of an issue"

"Are you hearing yourself? This is crazy!"

"Perhaps it is. After all, we are facing a maniac and Dawn is the only one who knows how he thinks"

"She doesn't know how he thinks, she thinks like he thinks! That's the point! I'm doing all I can to pull Dawn back from the brink while you are pushing her over the edge!"

Giles put down his glasses and leaned back in his chair. For a moment he just watched the Slayer standing over him, trembling with anger, both of her hands firmly planted into the tabletop.

"I understand how you feel, Buffy. You've been through much, but you are still young, and as many young people do, you think the situation you find yourself in is unique. This is not the first war that has ever been fought. Dawn is not first to be thrust into one. It happens over and over. Thousands, millions of good people are forced to do what they must to win, to protect those they love. Things they would never do otherwise. It is inevitable, and just as inevitable, wars end. These people go back to their families and friends and go on to live normal lives. Though they may never forget what they've done, they do forgive themselves"

"The way you plan to forgive yourself for what you are doing to Dawn?"

"Buffy..."

"Go to hell, Giles! You go to hell!"

The reverberations of a slammed oak door shook every furniture piece in the office. The books from the top two shelves rained down onto the floor. A half-full bottle of eighteen year old scotch teetered on edge for a second then fell. A thick sixteenth century volume softened the impact and it didn't shutter. Giles sat in his chair unmoving and watched the amber liquid seep slowly from the loosened cork, filling the room with a pleasant smoky aroma.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

Willow crouched on the comfy chair with both feet folded under her as she apprehensively watched Buffy pace clockwise around the living room literally shaking with indignation.

"He just sat there, smug as a … as a Watcher! He bluffed me with Robson, but he's not getting away with it this time. I've had it, Willow, he's fired, he is so fired!"

"You can't fire Giles"

"He'll be fine," Buffy waved the witch off, "He gets fired all the time"

"That's not what I mean. You are struggling to control the watchers as it is. What do you think is going to happen when you try to get rid of their leader?"

"Then they can all go to hell! We'll run the whole thing ourselves like we should have done from the beginning!"

"Leaving the craziness of that statement aside for the moment, what makes you think they'll just leave? The last time you had it out with the watchers you had leverage. They needed a Slayer and you were the only one not doing twenty five to life. Those days are gone. They have access to over eight hundred slayers and they won't give them up just because you say so. You try to push them out – they'll take the girls with them"

"They aren't theirs to take!"

"Aren't they? They are not your sisters, they are not your friends. They like you well enough, but if it comes down to a choice between men who speak their language, know their culture, who are there every day teaching them, having dinner with their families, and some strange American girl who drops in for a couple hours every two months, who do you think they'll pick?"

Buffy stopped in her tracks. She stared at Willow for a few seconds as the anger melted from her face. She shuffled listlessly over to the couch and dropped onto the cushions.

"I'm not strange," she pouted, "I'm fun, and witty, and have great taste in shoes!"

"All wonderful qualities that will earn you your share of slayers, maybe even the majority, but hundreds will leave. You will tear the whole sisterhood apart. You can't do that, not now"

"This sucks! What good is it being in charge when nobody listens to you and you can't fire them!"

"Welcome to the world of high politics," Willow gave her best attempt at a smile.

"Then we play the game," Buffy spoke after a considerable pause, "The slayers might not be one big sorority, but neither are the watchers. We should exploit that, get some on our side"

"They have their disagreements, but they all agree on hating you"

"Not all of them," Buffy jumped up from the couch visibly excited again, "True, I pissed off a whole bunch of people in the last eight years, but most of them are Parreli's age, itching to retire. There'll be a fifty percent turnover in the next two years. We have a chance to start clean with the new Academy graduates"

"You mean the ones educated by the old guard?"

To Willow's surprise the smile percolating on Buffy's lips got even wider. She approached the comfy chair, placed her hands on the armrests, and leaned in close.

"And there in lies the second part of my brilliant plan, Dean Rosenberg"

"Excuse me?"

"It's perfect!" Buffy pulled away and started counterclockwise around the couch, "Your guest lectures got rave reviews last year. Even if the other watchers suspect something I know Giles will support the appointment. We'll gain full access to students, input into the day to day curriculum. Teach these baby watchers the slayer perspective. This is going to work."

"Yes, the plan is good. You just need to find the right person to pull it off"

Buffy turned abruptly and stared at the witch who seemed to be trying to phase into the chair.

"I have the right person. You are the only one who can do it"

"That's where you're wrong, I can't do it!"

"Willow, this isn't funny anymore. I can't do everything myself. We're talking survival of the Slayer Council here, your Council. You put more thought and effort into it than I did!"

"I know! I can't be responsible for something this important!" she jumped off the chair and tried to straighten up before the stern glare of her friend, "I'm not doing it and that's final! I'm a grown woman and you can't make me!" she lasted about three seconds before scrambling behind her bedroom door with a frightened yelp. Making a serious effort to keep herself calm Buffy walked over and reached for the knob. The air shimmered, keeping her hand away.

"A force field? Are you serious? Willow, get out here right now! I know you can hear me!"

"No, I can't!" the witch shouted from behind her barricade, "This barrier is also soundproof! I mean...starting now!"

"For God's sakes! Willow! Willow!" Buffy wound up for a punch, but when her hand reached the door, the open palm slid off the force field along with her body. She sat there on the wooden floor for over an hour. Please, Willow, don't do this to me. There was no answer. Not a word disturbed the air or the thoughts in her head. She was completely alone.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

It was probably the three longest rings of Buffy's life when the sleepy voice on the other end finally answered.

"Hello?"

"I don't want to do this anymore, Xander"

The receiver responded with a deep sigh. "Buffy, you've been a Slayer for eight years. You'll be one for eighty more. Get over it already!"

"What? That's not at all..," she stuttered, more than a little startled by the response, "Why are you being so mean?"

"Because it's four in the morning"

"No, it's not. You are only an hour ahead of us"

"And what time is it in Rome?"

"It's..Oh, God! I'm so sorry! I'll call you back later, I'm so sorry!"

"No, no, it's alright," the tired voice followed with another sigh, "Snyder the Rooster will wake me up in half an hour anyway. Did I tell you we have poultry at the compound?"

"Yes"

"Oh, " Xander was definitely having trouble waking, "You talk then. What is it you are not doing anymore?"

"That thing we take turns doing. The one where we get into trouble and keep it from the others until we get so deep it blows into everybody's face. I'm not doing that anymore"

"Good for you," the subsequent pause was short lived, "You've called to drag me into your problems, haven't you?"

"Is that okay?"

"Sure," Xander sighed, "Lay it on me Slayer-girl"

And she did. In one continuous two hour monologue she laid out everything that has been crushing her soul these last few months. Dawn, Willow, Giles, everything. Xander kept silent for almost the entire time. Though he already knew or guessed most of what Buffy was telling, simply letting her vent would be healing in and of itself. It was when she told him what really happened to Dawn during her kidnapping that he finally broke down.

"Those bastards!" his voice reverberated in the receiver as he tried in vain to control himself, "If I got my hands on them..."

"Dawn got her hands on them," Buffy interrupted, "It just made things worse. I guess. I don't know. I don't know what else I can do. I want to, Xander. I want to fight for them, but I don't know how. Tell me what to do"

"Alright," she could hear him take a deep breath on the other end, "I'll start with what I know best. You think of Willow as this smart, shy, but ultimately brave, and incredibly powerful woman who can do anything. She can't. She can't lead, Buffy. Not that she isn't smart enough, or likable enough, or patient enough. Willow has everything necessary to succeed and that's the problem. She lacks the ability to fail. You see, while others may suffer when a hero fails, she's usually no longer around to witness that. A leader's mistakes, on the other hand, are almost always paid for by somebody else. Effective leadership requires you to shrug it off and move on. You can do it, but Willow can't. She is simply unable to sacrifice of anyone, but herself. Do not put her in that position. Give her time to recover and she will eventually rise to the occasion. Just don't push her, you'll break her again and this time it may be permanent," He paused expecting some sort of a retort, but there was only strangely accepting silence, "Now to Dawn. She has certainly grown up in the past year, more so than she should have and you should treat her accordingly. You won't intimidate her by yelling and you wont' outargue her either, she's smarter than you"

"So I am supposed do nothing again?" Buffy finally interrupted in frustration.

"I didn't say that. You've been approaching her as a big sister. Try doing it as a mother"

"I don't think I get it"

"Guilt, Buffy. The ultimate weapon of a parent. You may not have given birth to Dawn in a literal sense, but metaphysically you are responsible for her existence and you've saved her physical butt too many times to count. That girl has guilt issues galore, use it to your advantage"

"I'm going to need a little training here; mom didn't do this to me all that much"

"Lucky for you, you are talking to an expert victim here. Basically try to avoid direct confrontation, no arguing, no giving orders. Simply lots of offhanded remarks about how much you've done for her and how everything she's doing is making you miserable. We can do some exercises later"

"Sounds like a plan," Buffy nodded into her phone, "What do we do about Giles?"

"Unfortunately the psyche of middle-aged British guys is not my area of expertise. Now young British girls..he-he...no, nothing there either. I can give you my thoughts on the Beatles breakup"

"No, it's alright," she chuckled lightly, "Xander," she spoke quietly after a pause, "I don't just shrug it off. I move on, yes, but it's hard. I don't want you to think it's easy. I don't want you seeing me as some cold hearted bitch"

"That's where you are in luck. The eye I have left is the one that sees your good side"

"Xander!"

"Sorry, bad joke"

"Very bad joke!"

"I know I promised no more eye jokes, I'm sorry"

"Very, very bad joke!"

"I'm sorry, I won't do it again. Can I still do the one-eyed snake jokes? Technically that's an entirely different body part"

They fell quiet for a moment. In the descended silence Buffy could hear the bellowing of cattle, the rattle of metal tools or weapons. Rome was just getting its first light, but life in Zambia was already in full swing.

"Do you want me to teleport over?"

"So it's not Willow, my mind is just that easy to read," Buffy smiled, "No, I can't ask that. I've been hogging you too much as it is. Your girls need you. Not that I don't, I always do, but I'm much better now. Thank you, Xander"

"I'm always here for you, Buffy. Even at four in the morning. Grouchy, but here"

"I know. I'll talk to your later," she closed the flip on her phone and sat it on the nightstand. Powering through the blinds the rising sun colored the room various shades of gold. It was still an hour before the alarm would sound, but Buffy didn't bother closing her eyes. She didn't feel the need.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

The left section of the gym door was closed forcing Kate to enter sideways to make sure the giant mallet she was carrying didn't catch on the door frame.

"It took me a while, but I finally found it. So what am I supposed to smash?" she asked turning to Buffy, "Is it her?" she nodded towards a strange girl sitting on the mats.

"Good God, no!" Nikki exclaimed almost dropping her book.

"Kate, this is Nikki," Buffy made the introduction, "She's doing some important slayer research and we are helping her by setting up a little experiment."

"So I'm smashing that thing then?" Kate pointed to the large conspicuous object at Nikki's feet, a wheel with metal cutouts of human shapes.

"You are not smashing anything!" Buffy stepped quickly in between her and the rest of the room.

"Then why did you ask me to bring the mallet?"

Buffy bit her lip then took a deep breath.

"You are not smashing anything, _yet_. When Willow gets here she and Nikki will use that wheel to open a portal. I will jump in and a demon will jump out," Buffy stopped as she gave the young slayer a meaningful look, but the girl just stared back blankly. The pause kept growing. "You smash the demon, Kate!" she finally snapped.

"That was my next guess," the girl answered unfazed, "But since I got it wrong twice already I didn't want to presume. So why the mallet? Is it stabbing immune?"

"Don't think so," Buffy replied, "Just want to keep the splatter internal. The walls here don't wash easily. And here is Willow," she smiled waving at the witch.

"How do you do?" the watcher scrambled to her feet to greet her.

"You must be Nikki," the redhead shook her hand, "It's good to finally meet you in person"

"Actually we already met. I was at your lecture at the Academy last November. Animate to inanimate transmogrification?" the young woman paused momentarily hoping for a response, "I had a question for you? I didn't actually ask it, we were out of time, but I had my hand up. Third row, fifth seat from the left? That's alright," she smiled awkwardly, "I'm not very memorable"

"I wouldn't say that," Willow replied and Buffy noticed the young watcher's already blushing cheeks gaining in color.

"Shall we get down to business?"

Following Buffy's inviting gesture Nikki sat herself back down at the wheel and clicked the last shadow caster figure into position. Willow turned down the gym lights and took a sit nearby. Buffy gave Kate an approving nod as the girl prudently positioned herself in between the wheel and the door. The Slayer herself remained stationary. If memory served her right the portal should appear about two feet to the left. Getting the final go ahead signal in a form of a pointed finger Nikki span the wheel and began reciting the text. Buffy heard it last more than a year ago, but she still remembered it well enough to follow along even as the Slayer creation legend flowed in Sumerian. Nikki was definitely better versed in the language than Dawn was back in Sunnydale and there were no pauses or stumbling. She was apparently even trying to imitate the original pronunciation. It was a little sad, actually. The poor girl was trying very hard and very futilely to make an impression on people who couldn't tell Sumerian from Samaritan. Sumerian and Samaritan? When did she become a person who finds this funny? Buffy's agonizing over the nerdish turn in her sense of humor was cut short by the appearance of the portal.

"Kate, get ready. I'm going in"

Buffy dived inside and the silvery doorway shuttered behind her. The young slayer lifted her mallet preparing to strike down whatever would appear in its place. Like a compressed spring she stood there without so much as a twitch for almost five minutes.

"So, how long is it supposed to take?" she finally decided to inquire of the two experts in the room. The witch and the watcher each stared at the other hoping she wouldn't be the one to have to say the fateful words.

"Something's wrong," they answered in unison.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

The landing was soft. A short roll on the sand and Buffy was on her feet again. The desert looked very different this time around. Her first visit here she was almost blinded by the light that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Now the sun was low on the horizon and the sand reflected blood red. The scarce light prevented her from seeing too far out, but she could tell the Shadow Men weren't around to greet her this time. Good thing, too, since she had no desire of getting knocked unconscious again. The cave they have taken her afterward couldn't be too far from here. The large rock formation out in the distance was the logical place to start looking. The walk turned out to be a bit more grueling than Buffy expected. The dessert had too few markers to properly judge the distance. Still, she was not disappointed, a large crack in the volcanic rock face appeared before her almost as soon as the sand beneath her boots turned to flat stone. Having come prepared Buffy took a small halogen flashlight out of her pocket and carefully stepped inside. It was mostly as she remembered. Restraints wielded into the stone. Chains. A stand with the lock box. An open lock box. Buffy tensed a bit as she moved further in, making it a point to sweep continuously with her flash light. The box was supposed to contain a very powerful demonic essence. Did it escape? Run amok and killed the Shadow Men? The cave appeared to be clean, no bodies or blood. Perhaps the Shadow Men destroyed it instead. Without the essence there was no need for them to stay so they left. Left where? Is there anything else in this world besides the desert? Slowly, but surely Buffy made her way to the end of the cave.

"There's nothing here," she sighed out loud.

"Nothing here," a voice echoed from the entrance. Buffy turned and thrust her light in the direction of the sound. At the mouth of the cave stood a figure of a young black woman covered in phosphoric white war paint.

"The First Slayer," Buffy greeted the visitor

"Slayer," the woman answered.

"It's nice to see a familiar face"

"A familiar face," came the reply.

"So where has everybody gone?"

"Everybody gone"

The smile vanished from Buffy's face.

"Is there an echo here?" she said getting a little annoyed.

"Echo here"

The Slayer could only roll her eyes. Cryptic was one thing. It's pretty much a requirement for a quality vision, but this was downright useless. Still, it could have been worse. Whatever this entity's purpose is she hasn't moved from her spot so she probably isn't hostile. Then again she is blocking the only exit. Perhaps there's something in this cave she is supposed to do or see. She swept the cave with the flashlight one more time.

"There's nothing here," she said, frustrated.

"Nothing here," the First Slayer repeated.

"Exactly. The only weird thing here is you, so what's your purpose?"

"Your purpose"

"Apparently it's repeating my words"

"Repeating your words"

"You know, I'm this close to throwing this flashlight at you. Wait," Buffy paused mid smirk, "This wasn't what I said," she stepped to within a few feet of the woman, "You are actually answering me, aren't you? What are you?"

"An echo, a familiar face"

"What happened here?"

"Gone. Empty. Nothing"

"Why? What happened?" there was no answer. "My words," Buffy nodded, "You need more words. 'Aardvark', 'Abacus', no, " she waived herself off, "That's stupid. 'Yes', 'No', 'Shadow Men', 'Demon', 'Slayer', "Dead', 'Portal'..Come on!" she exclaimed as the woman before her kept silent, "There must be something here you can use!"

"Use"

"Use," Buffy nodded, "Okay. 'Use', 'User', 'Used', 'Using'.."

"Used," First Slayer turned her head, "Gone. Empty"

Buffy followed her gaze to the open lock box on the stand.

"Used," she repeated quietly, "It's us. We used it all up, didn't we? Makes sense, but slayers died. Wouldn't some of it come back?"

"No"

Buffy sighed as she sat down on the rock floor and and leaned against the cave wall.

"There was never a power cycle. That's how multiple slayers could exist simultaneously." Thinking out loud wasn't something she did often, but the Slayer shaped echo standing before her made it seem most appropriate, "The power always flowed one way from a finite source. One slayer dies another is born was just a safeguard to make sure it lasted. At an average lifespan of four years the line could have gone on for another four millennia. Now the best case scenario is seventy years and that's assuming a geriatric slayer can still cut it. On the positive side we have enough time to fix this. We can fix it, can't we?"

"Yes"

"That's all? Can't you at least give me a hint?"

"Give"

"Oh," Buffy chuckled, a little smug, "Do I have a word for you. 'Gift'"

"Give back the Gift"

"Give it back?" Buffy repeated, confused, "How am I supposed to that? 'Death is your gift'. That's what you told me the last time. Well, maybe not you, but she looked like you. A co-worker, perhaps? You do know what I'm talking about, right?"

"She must give the Gift back"

"'She'? As in not me? Hold on," Buffy jumped to her feet and looked suspiciously at the painted figure in front of her, "I'm not sure I'm liking where this is going. Who is 'she'?"

At once the air around her went dark. She could actually see it, streams of black with reddish hue swarmed past her as she felt herself falling through the ground. Instinctively Buffy tried to grasp at the ethereal veins circling about faster and faster, only her fingers just clasped onto themselves as the world turned into a blur. She felt herself accelerating, falling somewhere she couldn't see. Buffy closed her eyes to stop her head from spinning and braced for impact when someone grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Buffy?" the Slayer opened her eyes to find herself on the mat with Kate kneeling over.

"If you are about to tell me I was here passed out this whole time I'll be very upset"

"No, you just dropped in from a funky purple whirlpool. It's gone now"

"Great," Buffy said getting up, "You've got some timing, Willow. I was just getting to the good stuff. How soon can you send me back in?"

"We didn't bring you back, Buffy" Nikki responded instead.

"I was totally going to," Willow quickly jumped in, "I swear, I was this close"

"Please," Kate scoffed, "You were so panicked you couldn't even get the air to shimmer."

"As opposed to how helpful you've been with your genius idea of smashing things!" the witch shot back.

"Everybody, relax!" Buffy put her hands out, "I'm here, everything's fine, or is it?" she quickly glanced around the gym. "If you didn't bring me back then what happened to the demon?"

"There wasn't one," Nikki answered, "We tried to trigger the wheel again, but it's gone completely inert, like it was drained of all magic. Whatever created the exit portal didn't come from here. I have no idea how you came back or how to send you in again"

"The last hurray," Buffy mumbled, "No more slayers, no need for a portal."

"What do you mean?" Nikki perked up, "What happened there?"

"I think I'll need a few days to process. I'll get back to you"

"Very well," said the watcher doing a poor job of hiding her disappointment, "I'll leave my number and email. Whenever you have time..."

"Are you leaving already?"

"I'm sorry, I just assumed you don't need me anymore"

"And I assumed you would take this opportunity to spend some actual time with some actual slayers. You are a watcher, aren't you? Or did you choose the Academy for its wild parties?"

"Of course, I would love to," the young woman stuttered at the thought of having offended the Slayer, "But I have already been placed with the Office of Finance. It was not my first choice, but having just matriculated, I have not yet earned the privilege of picking my commission"

"Well, I believe I have earned the privilege. I'll have Giles transfer you. With Andrew gone the girls could use another newbie watcher to torment. That is if you feel up to it."

"Absolutely," Nikki nodded eagerly, "I'll start right away, ma'am"

"You don't have to be so formal all of a sudden. I'm your boss regardless of where you work," she smirked.

As Nikki proceeded to take apart the wheel Buffy tapped Willow's shoulder.

"Ask her out," she thought as loud as she could

"Excuse me?" the witch startled by the telepathic shout.

"She's cute, she's smart, and she's got a huge crush on you. Ask her out"

"I can't just...we just met!"

"I'm giving you thirty seconds to ask her out and then I'll ask her for you and it will be a lot more embarrassing, trust me"

Willow gulped and took a few steps towards the crouching young woman.

"So, Nikki," she started out hesitantly, "Since you are staying I thought I could help you get started on the whole Italian thing, like a cup of espresso at a sidewalk cafe. Tomorrow perhaps?"

"I don't think so," the watcher replied matter of fact as she stacked the metal shadow casters, "I'm really not into that"

"Oh," Willow's expression was that of someone who just walked into a wall, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to assume..."

"No!" Nikki jumped up waving her off, "No, no, no! I'm into _that_! I mean, I don't drink coffee. I mean, I'd love to...go...somewhere," she stuttered out now fully beet red.

"Purple Moon," Buffy interrupted to everyone's relief, "It's perfect. They have, like, five hundred kinds of tea. Same with coffee. Great music, low enough so you can talk and loud enough so you don't have to. Actually you should go right now. You'll need their magic business card for the door to appear," she fumbled inside her pockets, "There it is. What?" she asked going off Nikki's look.

"I'm sorry I just don't see many women using a money clip"

"Standard gear for every on-duty slayer. Our purse casualties went down ninety five percent since the adoption," Willow happily explained.

"This is the important stuff they don't cover at the Academy," said Buffy, "That's why you'll be spending time in the field. Later. Now you leave. If you hurry you'll make it by the start of the happy hour. It's not an alcohol thing," she responded to the objection that didn't even have to leave Willow's lips, "It's an hour when everyone's happy. You have to be there," she answered the now puzzled expression, "Just go". She practically pushed the girls out and remained in the doorway to make sure they traveled in the direction of the staircase.

"There goes Willow on a date. And to think it only took six months," Buffy mused as the pair disappeared out the corridor.

"If she brings her to Stefka's party it'll be two dates in a week," said Kate stacking the rolled up mats back against the wall.

"That's right. Stefka's surprise party is this Thursday; I completely forgot"

"Aren't you coming?" Kate asked sensing the disappointment in Buffy's voice.

"I can't, I have to go to India tomorrow. There's some Order of Taraka slayer seeking demon. It killed two girls already. We're setting up a trap and I'm playing the bait. Unless I get super lucky there's no way I can make it back in time"

"That sucks. Do you still want to pitch in for the present?"

"Of course, what are you getting her?"

"A Vespa scooter!" Kate announced proudly, "It's not new, but it's in excellent condition, I checked it out myself."

"That's pretty cool," Buffy nodded approvingly, "What do I owe?"

"It's thirty euros per. Whatever is left over will go towards catering. Samira is organizing it"

"Sounds good," Buffy took the bills out of her clip then after a momentary hesitation put them back, "Actually we are meeting for lunch so I'll just give it to her then"

It was a nice try, but it didn't work. Lying was never her strong suit. Kate's eyes widened and her entire body practically shook with indignation.

"I borrow money, I don't steal it!"

"Technically, if you borrow, but don't return..."

"You said I can pay you back 'whenever'!"

"That was three months ago"

"Well, excuse me for taking you at you word! What do I owe you, fifty?"

"Just forget it, Kate"

"No, no," the German was practically writhing as she angrily tried to pull her clip out of her tight hip hugging jeans, "I don't need your charity! If I owe you fifty..."

"Eighty, actually"

"If I owe you eighty," Kate went on, "Then eighty you shall have," taking a momentary gander at her clip she shoved it back into her pocket, "The second you return from India. Now, if you excuse me," the girl shot out the door just slow enough to preserve the last remaining shred of her dignity.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

The shortest route from the dorms to the Club gym that intersected a coffee maker lay through the break room on the fifth floor. Housing mostly meeting rooms, as well as Buffy's and Parreli's offices, it was usually the emptiest section of the Clubhouse. Even more so after what happened in the main conference two months ago. Stefka briskly passed by the boarded up entrance determine to get her coffee and leave this area as quickly as possible, but the light in a small neighboring room pulled her astray. She opened the door to find Dawn in front of piles of multicolored folders.

"Good morning," she called out to the girl.

"Is it?"

"Not if you spent all night in here, I suppose"

"I mean, is it morning? I had fun here. Not the 'hair full of glitter' fun, but it works for me"

Stefka smiled awkwardly running her hand through her blonde locks. "I haven't taken a shower yet; was going to work out first"

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it last night. Totally lost track of time going through all these reports"

"No you didn't," the slayer's face at once turned stern, "You are just covering for them. They told you not to come, didn't they?"

"It's their surprise party," Dawn shrugged, "They have the right to invite who they want"

"It's my birthday and I wanted to be with my best friend"

"And you will be tomorrow, your actual birthday. You are finally part of the in-crowd, bordering on popular; don't piss it off on my account."

"You got flack all the time for bringing me along," Stefka stepped forward now standing flush against the desk, "I don't have a clue how it got turned around like this, but I'm not going to abandon you"

"It's not the same, Stefka. With you they just needed time to see who you really you are"

"Who I really am brought all this death and misery upon them!"

"The girls aren't stupid," Dawn replied with a chuckle, "You don't get to choose who your family is, but when you did get a choice they saw you chose them over Leshii and they are starting to get that you've always put them first. Ahead of your own safety, your reputation. All those things they hated you for are now saving their lives. Not to mention the actual life saving you are doing practically every mission. They still think you are a freak, but they appreciate it now. I, on the other hand, wasn't born Leshii's sister. I chose to bring him into their world and in their eyes that makes me responsible. If it wasn't for Buffy they would have thrown me out long ago. Probably through the window," she smirked once more.

"They are not blaming you, Dawn, not really. It's just like me, they don't understand why you do what you do, but they will. I may be the one going out on missions every so often, but you are the one going at it day and night. This," she pointed to the papers scattered on the table, "is saving more lives than I ever could. Just give it some time, they will notice and..."

"I don't care. They are not the ones I'm doing this for"

"Don't say that! For Christ sakes, Dawn, stop ranking lives, only terrible things can come of it!"

A strange smile washed over Dawn's face. She leaned back in her chair stared attentively at Stefka's almost teary face.

"So you know about the little witches. Makes sense. You are a Board member now so you have the run of the classified files. I'm not ashamed. It was Buffy who ordered the official report censored. I made the best possible choice given what I had to work with and I stand by it. I guess you disagree."

"Vehemently," the slayer said softly.

"Fair enough," Dawn nodded and gestured invitingly towards the nearest chair, "Educate me, then. What would you do? Well, not you; a you you would have an actual chance of saving them, but a me you, a non kung fu you?"

"Nothing," Stefka answered not moving from her spot, "I would do nothing"

"And let Leshii kill all of them?"

"You don't know what he would do"

"That's a cop out if I ever heard one!" Dawn exclaimed waving the girl off , "You know damn well I couldn't take that chance"

"No, I don't," the slayer replied calm as ever, "That's the point. Influencing the choices of others is a noble cause, but in the end the choices you are responsible for are your own. 'Thou shall not kill' You chose otherwise."

"What I chose was to help at least some of them survive!"

"The so called, Greater Good. By taking the chances of survival of those six to zero you brought the chances of the others to a reasonable level. I'm not questioning your math, Dawn. I'm questioning the premise that numbers are ever an excuse to take a life."

"But it's always about the numbers! Even when a killer is pointing a gun at his victim there's a chance it will jam. Will you rely on that and do nothing, too?" The answer was so obvious the question was almost rhetorical. Almost.

"Yes," the slayer stated so plainly that Dawn did a double take to see if her straight face was for real, "If you are implying that the only way to stop him is to kill, then yes. It is not for me to decide who is more important. God sits in judgment of our lives. There's no greater sin than for one of us to usurp that"

"So everyone who ever killed is a sinner?" Stefka managed to dilute Dawn's sarcasm temporarily, but it was coming back stronger with every sentence, "Soldiers who defend their country and their families, all those cops protecting innocent citizens, inspector Rezinni who took out that sniper across the street, all of them committed crimes against God?"

"Yes, and I pray they understand that and repent"

"Don't you think it's a little hypocritical to say this while reaping the benefits of all those sins?"

"Do you think a policeman's family should be thankful for the existence of rapists and murderers that puts food on their table?" Stefka parried without hesitation, "We make the best of the world we live in, but I'd rather it be one where different choices are made"

"A world ruled by Nazis, that's what it would be! That's the Rome we'd live in now if millions of ordinary people didn't standup to Hitler's armies and did what they had to do for the Greater Good!"

"Don't you get it, Dawn?" despite the escalating excitement on the other end of the conversation the slayer continue to speak as softly as ever, "If it wasn't for millions of ordinary people doing what they had to do for what they believed was the Greater Good Hitler would have had no armies"

"Okay," the girl nodded with an appreciative smile, "You've got a point there: if everyone was good than everything would be good, but you had a better point before. We live in the world we get, not the one we want. Some people do evil and if the only way to stop them, to save the innocent, is to damn myself then that's the sacrifice I'm willing make"

The pause that followed was unexpected. The expression on Stefka's face has suddenly turned concerned, even fearful.

"You misunderstand everything. God isn't some capricious entity that punishes you for disobeying Him. He punishes you for doing Wrong. Don't you see? By equating sin to a noble sacrifice you are claiming moral superiority to God!"

"I guess that makes me Satan, doesn't it?" the girl chuckled.

"This isn't funny," the blonde slayer lowered her head trying to collect her thoughts. As she looked up again Dawn felt herself instinctively lean back in her chair under the weight of those blue eyes, "I'm not that naive, Dawn. I know I can't change you with a conversation. I just want you to think about something. It's been said to me once that morality is irrelevant. All that any of us really wants is to change the world into something ideal from our individual point of view so as long as we evaluate the effects in their totality, any action taken that brings about a reality that's closer to our vision must be a correct one. I'm sure you heard something similar. It sounds very logical, but it is wrong. I knew it right away, but I didn't understand why until you came back. It's us. We are the choices we make. The action taken changes us. The new you may like the new world better where the old you may not. Travel that path far enough and you may easily destroy what you set out to save and you won't even realize it"

What Dawn was realizing fast was that she doesn't really know Stefka that well. During all the time they spent together the conversation flowed mostly one way. She never grasped just how intelligent this girl is and the question that's been nagging her for months has finally been answered. Why would Leshii just accept Stefka's choice of values and let her leave his protection rather than try to change her? It seemed so uncharacteristic that a man of his ability would surrender to something as pedestrian as childhood religious indoctrination. He didn't. Stefka was not some pig-headed zealot. She was as brilliant as her brother and the world she constructed for herself, though built on a different foundation, was just as logical and sturdy as his. Each one of them tried to bring the other into their universe, but being evenly matched they had no choice, but part ways. Did Buffy actually see something she missed? How much more of Leshii is there, underneath that sea of straw colored hair? She lacks Leshii's confidence, his clarity of purpose, but those come with age and then...

"I know you have many people in your life, Dawn," Stefka continued meanwhile, "People who a lot more important to you than I am. I don't. I don't want to lose you"

"And I'd like to return the favor, by talking you out of the mission I hear you are planning," Dawn smiled uncomfortably, quickly changing the subject, "If this safe house is anything like the others it has nothing, but rigged explosives or other traps. We'll get no cooperation from Belarus police which means direct slayer to gun confrontation. We don't have a good track record there."

"Which is why I'm taking Willow. She'll give us all the cover we need and if things go really bad she'll teleport us out. This is our big chance, Dawn. We know Leshii used this house as recently as three weeks ago. It may contain clues to where he moved next. If Buffy was reachable at her India stake out, I'd get her blessing, but she isn't so it's my call"

"This is your first week back in charge. Do you really want to make that kind of call?"

"Tenure is irrelevant. Either I'm capable of making this decision or I hand the post back to Samira. I would appreciate your help planning, though"

"What do you think these are?" Dawn pointed to the scattered papers with a satisfied smile, "Now get your birthday butt in the chair already, you are giving me a neck strain"

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

The suites in the Rome clubhouse weren't completely identical. Due to the shape of the building the corner rooms were significantly larger than regular bedrooms and thus capable of housing twice the furniture. The choice to double up was voluntary and a few slayers chose to surrender some of the privacy in exchange for the premium view and a more palatial setup. By a twist of fate Kate and Enise have already been roommates at a sixth grade summer camp when the Turkish girl's family came to Munich on a construction contract. Reunited as slayers the girls jumped at the opportunity to live together and suite number seven became one of four housing three girls instead of two At the moment, however, Kate was alone in the common room watching TV which was exactly how Dasha intended it to be.

"I didn't know Stefka had birthday cake leftovers," she said noticing the seven layer tower of doe, cream, and fruit in front of the freckled redhead.

"She doesn't," the Kate replied sternly, pulling the plate towards her.

"Relax, I'm still on my diet. I did come here to ask you for something, though," Dasha joined the other slayer on the sofa, "I want your spot on Stefka's mission"

"Forget it," the German scoffed sending a forkful of cake down the gauntlet.

"Please, Kate. It's a joint mission with Cleveland which means Andrew is going to be there. I've only seen him once since the transfer"

"You know who else is going to be there? Willow. Willow never leaves Rome unless it's something super important. I haven't been picked for anything good since Istanbul, so forget it"

"Come on, Kate, you owe me"

"No, I don't"

"Yes, you do. You owe me two hundred and eighty euros"

"Oh," the next piece of cake paused in the air, "That kind of owe"

"That's right. Now you don't want it getting out that you can't pay your debts, do you?"

"I can pay. The stipend is in two days."

"It won't cover," Dasha shook her head.

"So I'll borrow the rest"

"You've borrowed from everyone already! Nobody is stupid enough to give you more"

"You lend me money all the time," the ginger girl responded somewhat confused.

"During the game, because I know you'll just loose it right back. For someone with a gambling problem you really are lousy at cards"

Failing to come with an appropriate response Kate simply jammed an extra large piece into her mouth.

"I'll knock a hundred and thirty off," Dasha pressed on, "Come on, we'll both be happy"

"All of it," said Kate as soon as she swallowed enough to speak, "I want all of my debt canceled. I'm tired of never having any money! I want to keep my entire stipend for once"

"You still owe, like, fifteen hundred around the club. If the others find out you have money they'll want to be paid"

"I'll hide," the girl responded grimly, "Do we have a deal or not? I can tell Stefka I twisted my ankle"

"An upset stomach would be more believable," the Ukrainian smirked

"Go away before I change my mind, Dasha"

She didn't have to be asked twice. Leaving the sulking Kate to her plate of dessert the slayer hurried to her room to prepare for her upcoming battlefield date.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

It was grim-looking, mostly wooden structure. A large two story house surrounded by some unkempt farmland on one side and a birch forest on the other, its nearest neighbor was at least half a mile away. Expecting cellular service would clearly be too much. Stefka fixed one of the satellite phones to her belt and handed the other one to Andrew as the team gathered around Willow. The witch crouched on the ground and cast a few wisps of purple powder from her pouch. The slayers watched as it smoked and disappeared in a rainbow of green, red and yellow tones.

"There are no explosives in the vicinity. No electrical power at the house either," the witch said.

"It could still be a trap, " Stefka whispered. "How many people inside?"

"None," answered Willow after a slight pause. "No magic either. Just as our sources said, the house is abandoned"

"Alright," Stefka addressed the rest of the team. "We're going in. Always keep at least one of your comrades in sight and watch out for booby traps"

Two by two they entered through the heavy wooden door that appeared to be the only entryway into the structure. It seemed even older inside. The smell of mold was bursting into their nostrils and the squeaking of the floor boards strained their ear drums.

"Rhonda," Stefka spoke to the lead of the American contingent, "Have your team secure this level. Dasha will take my team to the second floor. Willow and I will check out the basement"

"Leaves our team one person short so Andrew comes with us," said Dasha and quickly grabbed the boy's hand.

"I don't think so," Stefka put her hand on his shoulder before his girlfriend could whisk him away, "This is a reconnaissance mission, not a make out party"

"I'm perfectly qualified to do both simultaneously," the young man responded with an ingratiating smile .

"Come on, girl," Rhonda nudged her counterpart, "Middle of nowhere, creepy abandoned house. It's hot. Don't you have a guy you wished would be here?"

"She doesn't need a guy; she's got a big fat candle in her nightstand," Dasha grumbled.

"That's so uncalled for!" Lily snapped as other slayers strained not to laugh, "You apologize!"

"What for? I meant she spends her nights in wholesome prayer. What did you think I mean?" the Ukrainian smirked leaving her opponent to stutter in dismay.

"Upstairs, both of you," Stefka commanded, cutting the scene short, "Andrew - basement"

It was a big house dotted with tiny bedrooms, closets, and pantries. All of them were stripped bare of everything, but paint, and the slayers moved on quickly from one to another. Routine sweep first; detailed examination to follow later. Dasha was about to take the pull down stairs into the attic when she noticed another door in the far corner. She signaled Oksana to head up without her and went to check out the last room of the second story. The door opened into a study. Unlike the others, this room still had furniture: books on the bookshelves; an old wooden desk with two lamps on each corner; a large chair in front of it. In the chair sat Leshii. Dasha gasped as a fiery sensation radiated from her chest into her arms and up her throat. The gasp turned into a gurgle as blood shot up her wind pipe, her feet buckled beneath her. With her last strength she grasped weakly for Leshii's ankle as he dashed by into the hallway.The second bullet was delivered between the eyes, this time to Oksana who jumped down from the attic upon hearing the first shot. Two more seconds, two more shots. These ones missed, as Enise and Lily dove behind the nearest posts. Two more seconds. He could hear the other slayers running up the stairs. Out of the corner of his eye Leshii saw Willow materializing. He pulled on a candle holder on the wall and the trap door beneath sent him falling straight to the basement. He landed on his feet and limped as fast as he could to another secret exit there. It only takes two seconds for an experienced witch to cast a teleportation spell. As the door was closing behind him, a powerful force pulverized it, smashing a hurdle of debris into his back. Willow watched Leshii trying to get up from under the pile of bricks and broken wood, her eyes were black as tar. She moved towards him, but as she stepped through the chasm in the wall she created she felt the ground give slightly under her foot. Four sharp needles went through her sneakers and pierced the skin. Her leg crumbled beneath her as the paralyzing venom shot up her muscles. With a weak yelp Willow collapsed to the ground, more needles piercing every part of her body from her hands to her ankles. Her mind raced trying to stay ahead of the venom rushing towards her heart. Leshii stood up a few meters from her. The poison should be enough, but one can never be too careful with a witch. He lifted his gun and pointed the barrel at the girl's head. The shot missed. The contracting muscles pulled the trigger finger, but the severed hand was pointing elsewhere due to the force of the impact. Stefka followed her axe out of the window, landing far enough off the house walls to avoid the trap that claimed Willow. If Leshii had a backup gun he had no backup hand to retrieve it. Pointing his stump upward to slow the bleeding and his cane at the slayer he was deliberately backing off in the direction of the thick birch grove. Stefka gripped her remaining axe tighter and quickly closed the distance between them. This will not be a repeat of Buffy's fight. She has a weapon and no promises to keep. It ends now.

With only two yards between them Leshii stopped. Two small metal squares jumped out of his sleeve attached to wires that disappeared somewhere under his clothes. They flew alongside the cane giving off a tiny blue lightening as the clasped to the end of it.

"This won't kill you," he spoke in a calm, almost friendly manner, "You will witness all their deaths and die last"

The black disk of electrified metal pointed at her chest stopped Stefka in her tracks. Better he had a gun. A bullet wound she could take, but now even the slightest touch anywhere on her body and she's out cold. Satisfied he made the proper impression Leshii resumed his retreat. Stefka followed, keeping a respectful distance. There has to be something she could do. Perhaps if she throws her axe just right he'll have to use the cane to block it allowing her come in close enough to knock the weapon out of his hand. The hand. Leshii was wearing his regular leather glove, not rubber. It makes sense. He told Buffy the cane was 'mostly lead' and lead is a poor conductor of electricity. It's also a soft metal making it an impractical walking stick without a more durable material for the knob, like iron. If simply safeguarding the cane from wear and tear was the original purpose of the knob then the electricity doesn't extend beyond the first two or three inches of the staff. All she has to do is grip below it. Stefka tossed aside her axe and closed in. As if reading her thoughts Leshii quickly shortened his grip to the middle of the cane. The slayer attacked. It looked almost like a dance. Each knowing exactly what other was trying to do they were simultaneously reaching and dodging, and ultimately partying without hardly making any contact. Each time their fight broke Leshii kept backing into the forest. They were a dozen meters past the tree line now. Is there something he is running to? Are his minions waiting there, more traps? Doesn't matter. She will follow him as long as it takes. Immune to magic his cane must run on a battery strapped somewhere on his body. However much power he has, it is a finite source; he can stave off the inevitable for only so long. Oh, God! Stefka's head snapped in the direction of the house. Willow was still there, lying in the field full of poison. She turned back to Leshii, but the outcome of her dilemma was obvious even to her enemy.

"Might as well," he spoke lowering his weapon, "If you were truly ready to kill me you would have forgotten all about her"

Stefka sprinted back to the house. She stopped a few meters before Willow's body and grabbed several bricks scattered about from the wall the witch has shattered. Throwing them down in front of herself one by one she made her way through the poison-rigged grass. Taking Willow into her arms Stefka then leaped straight into the house. For a second she considered carrying the witch upstairs, but set her on the floor instead and grabbed the satellite phone from the holster on her belt.

"I already called Dawn," Leaning against the staircase sat Andrew, "They'll be here soon"

"I heard shots. Four, I think. Are there wounded?"

"No, no wounded. Just dead," the young man spoke quietly with a strange detachment, "Is she dead, too?"

"She's cold," Stefka answered, placing her hand at Willow's mouth, "Almost frozen. This is good. It's magic so she must still be alive, right?"

"They'll be here soon," Andrew repeated looking away. Somewhere far off, from the direction of the birch forest, came a faint purring of a helicopter.

1Technically, the events described here take place three years prior to the release of "Manbearpig" episode of "South Park" so Mortimer can't be referring to it, but the Author is. Just a little homage to the genius of Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

2Keyhole's Earth Viewer was purchased by Google in 2004 and re-branded Google Earth


	14. Chapter 14: End Game Part II

**Chapter 14: **

**End Game. Part II**

Leshii was not an easy man to surprise, but there he was, standing pat in the doorway, the words clearly eluding him for the moment. The bedroom was filled to the brim with flesh. The low ceiling forced the Creature to hunch over even seated. The limbs seemed to be everywhere at once. One of the arms pinned the twisted remains of Leshii's metal bed frame to the wall, while the pile of wooden chips peaking from under the giant rear appeared to be the fate of the rest of the furniture.

"This is not what it looks like," It blurted out sporting an expression of extreme embarrassment.

"I don't see how it can possibly be," Leshii glanced down the corridor to see if anyone was nearby then closed the door as he squeezed inside.

"I'm just saying I come in peace, wise guy. Since you are so inconveniently magic immune I have to talk to you in person and your quarters aren't exactly husky people friendly."

"I believe you. You have no reason to harm me; my war with the Slayer suits you"

"It does, it does," the omnipresent smirk has returned to the Creature's face, "How's that going by the way? Not very well I hear. Sure, the Willow trap at the house was beautiful, but, honestly, it was more desperation than moxie. You put your own life on the line and what did it get you, aside from a brand spanking new prosthetic? The witch survived. In no time she'll be ripping through Zemfira's locator blocks like mohel through foreskin, and the parade of your headhunters to local prisons will resume"

"If you come offering help, don't bother. However many of my mercenaries they put away there will always be more to hire. I have enough money to keep this up for decades. What I don't have is time to watch for your double-crosses"

The long neck slithered down from the ceiling bringing the Creature's face to within centimeters of Leshii.

"What you don't have is time, period," It hissed, "That ticker of yours is going faster and faster. How long till it blows? A year? Two years? Three, if you are lucky? Your rate of successful hits is falling. The way things stand now there's no way you'll ever be able to get all them in time"

"Suppose you're right. Suppose you lend me your Harbingers and your Necromancers. Things would certainly go faster. By a year? Two years? I might drop dead before it happens just as well. It's not worth the risk"

"Ten days. I can guarantee it will end in ten days"

Leshii slowly removed his glasses and fixed his green eye upon the slippery surface of the Creature's face.

"Did you actually come all this way to propose I help you destroy the world? You're not as good a judge of character as I thought you were"

"No, " the First answered, still smiling, "I propose I help _you _destroy the world"

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

The vast cavern had no windows just several narrow ventilation shafts. Electric wires with dozens of light bulbs were strewn along the walls and ceiling. Piles and piles of stone tablets covered most of the floor save for the strip closest to the entrance. In one corner of that living area stood a bed and a desk. The other housed a dresser and a porta-potty. The sound of falling stone jarred Martin out of his nap. He sat up on the bed and turned behind him. Some of the taller piles lay scattered on the floor.

"An earthquake?" he wondered getting up to check for damage, but the sound of the unlocking door had him turn abruptly the other way.

"This is indeed an unexpected honor," He grinned grabbing his jacket off the back of the desk chair, "If it wasn't for the guards at every door and window in this place I wouldn't think you cared"

"I want to know what you have found out about the First's weapon," said Leshii paying no heed to the sardonic remark.

"What makes you think I found anything? 'For my own protection' or not, a confinement by you has so far invariably led to execution. A circumstance hardly conducive to increasing productivity on anything other than an escape plan"

"I agree," Leshii replied taking a seat in the chair that just housed Martin's jacket, "Except the only place you can escape to is the Slayers' Council. Since they know of your role in the Rome massacre you wouldn't dare show up empty handed. Which means whether you are loyal or a traitor you have been doing the research. Now tell me what you found"

"Once again I'm rendered helpless before you logic," Martin smirked, "I have indeed found out a great deal; enough to outdo Scheherazade and keep myself alive for well over a thousand nights"

"I'm not interested in tales and legends. I want a simple answer to a simple question: can I use the weapon against the slayers?"

"Very well, I'll do my best do be succinct. Can the weapon be used against slayers? Yes, with a caveat. The weapon is actually a special kind of portal channeling destructive forces from other dimensions collectively called the Void. A fascinating concept which you unfortunately don't want to dive into," Martin smiled politely, "Suffice to say it absorbs matter and energy. Its creators believed it only affected demons and magic, but what they came to find later, is that as the Void's influence expands, it becomes fatal to humans. Can _you_ use the weapon? Incidentally, you appear to be the only one who can. The final step in the weapon's assembly is to imbue it onto a willing host, referred to as the Wielder, who must have an extraordinary high level of magic resistance and tolerance for extreme pain. There's a downside. Once joined, the weapon cannot be removed without killing the host. The Wielder's magic resistance will protect him to an extent, but inevitably the Void will grow powerful enough to kill him as well"

"This doesn't makes sense. How can the First destroy the world if the weapon just shuts off?"

"A human body is immune to the Void. Only the Wielder's soul is lost leaving him a creature without desire or purpose, an automaton, following whatever his last intention was out of inertia"

"Easy kill"

"Not really. The imbuement spell also renders the Wielder essentially invincible"

"'Essentially'?"

"A logical conclusion," Martin answered with the usual cocky smile, "The spell claims full invincibility, but since the world hasn't ended ten thousand years ago I assume a loophole was found. There is still a great deal of tablets to go through"

"Satisfied I'm telling the truth?"

Hearing the voice behind him Martin turned and froze at the sight of the Creature standing atop of the scattered tablets. As the Englishman stared, his mouth agape, Leshii grabbed his head with both hands, and snapped his neck.

"What, the fuck?" the First mumbled in Martin's voice

"He is not needed anymore," Leshii answered.

"Not arguing; just voicing his last thought. So," the First bent the hind legs setting Its giant body on the floor next to Leshii. The liquid surface of Its head wobbled, narrowing, sharpening. A long thin nose sprung forth followed by two watery gray eyes, "What do you think?"

"What I think is you must take me for a fool," the Russian's voice was low and menacing, "Do you really expect me to believe that being a perfect match for this weapon of yours is a happy coincidence? You planned this from the start. You knew that as long as I had someone I cared for I would not join you, so you used Dawn to drive a wedge between me and my sister. You took her away from me"

"I don't think you are a fool, Alexei, nor did I take anything away from you. I only showed you the truth: she was never yours to begin with. I may have forced her to choose, but the choice was all hers. Free will all the way," the First paused in a futile attempt to gauge the human's reaction, "Still, I am guilty from a certain point of view. I suppose were it not for me the illusion of the loving sister may have remained intact the rest of your short life. Then again it is also possible that you would have learned the truth later on, too late to do anything about it. Don't misunderstand, I'm not claiming I did this for you. I did this for me. The reason we are sitting here, talking, is because the window that gives me the power to overcome your immunity and perform the imbuement spell will be gone in two weeks. It's far too late for me to find another Wielder. It's your choice now; your revenge. Join me and destroy everything she cares for, just as she has done to you. Turn me down and I'll be forced to wait decades for another chance. I suppose it comes down to which one of us you hate more," the First stopped. The long silence broken only by the sound of the Creature's tail scrubbing softly against the flooring.

"I don't hate you," Leshii answered at last, "One does not hate the wind for blowing. You are what you are. But she...she was supposed to be my sister"

"And so she'll be made to understand just how wrong she was to forsake her duties. Come now," The First rose to Its feet, "We have much to do and not so much time to do it in"

"I would imagine. How many weapon parts are we still missing?"

"None. I had them all for some time"

"What about my amulet?"

"McClure was correct to assume the Wielder's invincibility is not absolute. The amulet, of which you have half, is a map to the location of the lone remaining weapon capable of killing him, well, you"

"Are you certain there is just one?"

"Three daggers were forged. I already destroyed the other two"

"But not this one. It must be protected by the same spell that prevents you from touching the amulet," Leshii mused making no move to leave his chair, "If you get me to the location I should be able to pass through any barrier and retrieve it"

"Just as soon as we know that location"

Leshii turned to the First, his green eye narrowing a little in suspicion

"How could you not know? Whatever tricks the magi used to hide it you could counteract using their memories. Unless..."

"Unless the person who hid it is still alive," the First finished the sentence visibly annoyed.

"Impossible. No amount of magic can extend a human life that much"

"That depends on your definition of 'life'. In their incessant quest for immortality humans discovered a spell that induces a kind of sleep that requires no sustenance. Perfect in every way, but one: you can never wake up. They called it the Living Death. On the combined scale of power and uselessness it knew no equal until the archmage of Fire cast it on himself to prevent his memories from passing on to me"

"You weren't looking for the amulet or the weapon in the Andes, you were looking for his body"

"He told his apprentices of his plan when he gave them the amulet halves. Then he had them seal him in the mausoleum. That conniving liar. He knew that the grave of a man who saved life as we know it would be an object of worship. If he were to simply disappear, someone would find it eventually, and, by extension, so would I. So he created a fake one instead, and when everyone was gone teleported himself elsewhere, probably to the same temple where the dagger is hidden. Then, instead of passing to Heaven like every good little hero, he condemns himself to an eternity of nightmares just so that I couldn't have the knowledge that he can't use himself anyway! What a petty, selfish prick. I so, so hate him!"

"You hate everybody," Leshii said calmly as the Creature fumed.

"True," the First smirked, "I even hate you and you are my ally"

"All these centuries of scheming are down to my free will. You must hate me the most"

"The freaky perceptiveness isn't helping your case any, either," the First grumbled, "Now can we get to the issue at hand? We need to retrieve that dagger"

"Why? You knew you couldn't use or destroy the amulets so you made sure they ended up in different camps. Then you made sure the sides were at war. The Slayer will never get to my half, your plan worked perfectly"

"My plan has developed a small wrinkle"

"What kind of a wrinkle?"

"About a meter sixty five, red hair"

"Willow"

"The bitch witch hacked the amulet. They have some sort of a computer program running against it. We need to get to their half before it finishes. Here's what I was thinking: the Rome office is heavily fortified, but if I lead a direct assault it should distract them long enough for you to sneak past the barriers"

Leshii stared at the First with a muted amusement

"It's risky, but let's assume it works. If the dagger is also protected by an anti-evil spell you'll need me to get it. I can't be teleported; it may take me days to get to the right location. At the same time the Slayer is tipped off to our plan. If it's possible to accelerate their program they'll do it. There's a chance they'll get there ahead of me, but let's assume you can stall them. What kind of damage do I have to inflict on the dagger so that it can't be reconstituted? Since I cannot use magic something like a blowtorch or C4 would have to be sufficient"

"The blade is crystal; all you need is to shatter it. Unfortunately the dagger can only be removed from its resting place for a 'righteous cause'. If all that means is that it's protected by a barrier, you'll do fine, but if it's hidden inside the rock face as these things sometimes are you won't even see it. In that case I will start teleporting people in and you'll have to make them get the dagger"

"And if saving their lives or the lives of their families is not considered a 'righteous cause'? This is a terrible plan. Every part of it"

The Creature glared at Leshii for a second then threw up all four of Its arms in frustration.

"Do you think I don't know that? This is why I plan every detail decades in advance: I'm not good at improvising!"

"I am"

"You have a better plan? Already?" The First looked sceptically at the Russian.

"I think so, and if it doesn't work we can still try yours"

"Do tell"

"You'll love it. It's your kind of plan."

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

"One tall and very frappy frappuccino," Kate announced handing over the cup.

"Thanks," They took a few steps towards the door when Dawn stopped abruptly, "I'm going to put some nutmeg on the frap. Why don't you grab us a table?"

It took a few weeks, but Buffy and inspector Rezinni managed to convince both the police and the Carabinieri to declare the twenty block radius around the Clubhouse a weapons free area. Without any false positives triggering Willow's spell, the snipers were permanently cleared out, lifting the siege. The Order of Taraka were harder to purge, so groups of three or more were mandated for any outside venture. As soon as Kate and Enise disappeared out the door Dawn set the cup on the counter and took the flask out of her back pocket. As she poured cognac into the iced coffee she wondered if Buffy assigned her escorts to watch her as much as watch after her. She put the lid back on and headed outside. As she passed by a booth someone forcefully gripped her wrist. She turned to find an elderly Asian man looking at her through large dark glasses.

"Take a seat," a familiar voice spoke.

Dawn stared for only a second. Glamor didn't work on Leshii, nor did it have to. His mutilated face lacked most of the distinguishing characteristics making it a perfect canvas for masks and makeup.

"Nice grip there, Vader," she responded in no hurry to accept the invitation, "I strongly suggest you let go" The revolver was in her other back pocket, but getting it would mean dropping the cup in her free hand. Hardly inconspicuous. Leshii would certainly draw his gun faster.

"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead," the Russian spoke as if answering her thoughts.

"So would you. I have two slayers waiting for me outside and you have no backup"

"I did not come here to posture and trade threats. Take a seat," Leshii let go the girl's wrist, "Please," he added pointing across.

Dawn placed her cup on the far side of the table and scooted into the fake leather bench.

"We have a common problem," said Leshii once the girl was situated.

"Your raging insanity?"

"The First and Its apocalypse"

"What do you care?" Dawn scoffed, "You want us dead"

"If I simply wanted you dead I wouldn't have to do anything. You would all die of old age eventually. What I want is to kill you which means I cannot allow the First to beat me to it"

"Wow," Dawn smirked, "Coming from you this actually makes sense. What are you proposing?"

"Each of us posses half of the artifact, which according to McClure, holds the map of where a piece of the weapon the First is assembling is located. We'll use the map to find and destroy it"

"Sounds like a plan. I'll be happy to pass your half off to Buffy"

"No. No one must know what we are doing. The First has a spy with full security clearance. Perhaps a member of the Board of the Council . If we involve anyone else It may learn the location"

"'A spy on the Board?'" Dawn's lips twisted in scorn, "That's ridiculous!"

"The coven we destroyed in Westbury was directed by someone here, someone with authority. At the time I thought it part of some Watcher intrigue, but now I'm convinced that this operation was conducted on the First's behalf," placing both of his hands on the table Leshii leaned closer in, "I don't know who the spy is. I only know who it is not. When the calls were made from Rome you were with me in Germany. I trust you. I will not do so for anyone else. I will meet you inside the perimeter of your compound," he said retreating back into his seat, "Willow's force fields are no hindrance to me, but they will provide cover from the First. Once we know where the missing part is located we will disassemble the amulet and you will return your half to where it is normally stored so it is not missed. We will travel to the location separately. Since it can be anywhere you will need an excuse to leave the compound for a few days. If you agree, we will do this tonight"

"Sure, I could agree. Then I can turn you in and take my chances with the spy"

"You know I won't be taken alive. You will suffer causalities and loose the surprise advantage against the First. Perhaps it is worth it to you. Perhaps you consider me a more pressing threat than the apocalypse. For my part, I believe the First is very close to Its goal, so I have to take my chances. I will be watching your window. At ten seventeen tonight I want you to turn on your desk lamp for exactly three minutes then turn it off. If you do so I will know to meet you at the western wall at one thirty in the morning. Think it over," even before he was finished Leshii was already getting up. Dawn's three minute absence did not go unnoticed. By the time Enise frantically pushed her way through the crowded cafe the girl was all by herself in the booth.

...

When she returned to the clubhouse it was already getting dark. Careful not to inflame any further suspicion in her companions Dawn let her day of "relaxation and shopping" run its course and now there were scant eighty minutes left to make her decision. She dropped her bags on the bed and set down at her desk. With a smirk she pulled back her hand as it instinctively reached for the light switch. Taking a deep breath Dawn closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair.

"There you go, sweetheart, and you were afraid you wouldn't be able to get a handle on this"

Dawn opened her eyes to find her mother sitting on the bed across from her.

"I don't think I have; I was expecting Spike"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but if it's Spike you want feel free to dial the number"

"You are right," the girl smiled, "Makes perfect sense. Any other hints?"

"Not really my area of expertise," Joyce smiled back kindly.

"Right again," Dawn nodded, "Whose would it be, Tara's? Or, maybe, Anya's?"

"Is this really the question you called me here to answer?"

"You know the question"

"I know what you know. Do you think you know the question? Let's hear it"

Dawn stared at her mother's apparition. She was right, pulling all of this into a single phrase was not as trivial as it seemed.

"Is it possible?" she said at last

"Anything is possible"

"Fair enough," Dawn nodded, "Would you do it? If it was me or Buffy, would you do it?"

"No," the woman shook her head, "I am not strong enough"

"But if you were?"

"But I'm not. Are you? Isn't that the real question? Do you think you are strong enough?"

They looked at each other in silence until Dawn got off her chair and took a sit on the bed next to her mother.

"You don't have to leave right away, do you?"

"You shouldn't try to keep me here, sweetheart. Sooner or later you'll have to let go and then you'll just feel guilty you couldn't keep me longer. I don't want that, baby. I love you"

Dawn shut her eyes as tight as she could. There were so many important things to concentrate on. So many crucial details to plan, to calculate. Only the tears would not stop rolling down her cheeks.

...

The air distortions of the teleportation aura receded, but it didn't clear things up all that much. The only source of light was a dim bulb at the end of the sewer tunnel. Yozh and his men stood silently in a circle surrounding the witch, guns at the ready, waiting for their eyes to adjust.

"There's no one here," the vampire spoke after what seemed like an eternity.

"Good," Yozh breathed a sigh of relief and lowered his weapon, "Not good?" He jerked the barrel of the machine gun back up when he saw Zemfira's expression.

"I sense _no one,_" she re-iterated, "No Harbingers, no Necromancers, no humans"

"Not good," Yozh nodded in agreement, "Wait, even if Leshii was still here you wouldn't know, would you? Can you sniff him out or something?"

"There's too much blood here," the vampire snorted agitatedly, "It throws me"

"Room to room search then. Braids, you and Fox take the section on the right. You, two, go straight. Zemfira and I will pay a visit to Martin below. Keep me apprised"

They walked down the tunnel in silence, the witch a few steps behind the gangster, when suddenly she dashed ahead of him to pick up an object in the puddle next to the wall.

"What've you got there?"

"An arm," the vampire replied, "And a leg," she added noticing another limb not far off.

"Well someone's bought something expensive," the gangster joked grimly, "Are they Leshii's?"

"No"

"Let's keep walking then. It's all your fault you know"

"How's it my fault?' Zemfira bristled

"You actually fell for the whole 'don't worry, it's just a false alarm' trick? Pathetic"

"It was Leshii's voice on Leshii's phone. What was I supposed to think?"

"The 'First proximity' alarm was triggered. You should have assumed the First killed him, took his phone, and faked his voice!"

"If you think Leshii was already dead when I got the call then what's the difference if we came now or two days ago? Idiot"

"Fuck you," was the best counter argument Yozh could come up with.

The door to Martin's room was unlocked. The barrel of the machine guns was the first to poke inside; the fat man followed.

"Another dead end," he grumbled in the direction of the ex-Watcher's corpse. Zemfira's reaction was much the opposite. Visibly energized she jumped to Martin's side and ran her hands over his head.

"Intact. Good," she mumbled. She tilted her neck slightly, her blackening eyes slowly rolled upwards. Her fingertips no longer roamed, but pressed tightly against the scull. The witch moved her lips in a silent incantation as her fingers phased through the bone. Suddenly she gasped, letting go of the corpse and stared at Yozh with wide open eyes.

"It wasn't the First, it was Leshii!"

"Leshii ate the guards?" the fat man scoffed

"No, you moron! Leshii killed Martin. He and the First are working together!"

The gangster planted himself into the chair at the desk and stared at the witch.

"That makes absolutely no sense. Read him again"

"It makes perfect sense. We were moving too slowly, not killing slayers fast enough. He couldn't wait, he had to get them all and soon. An apocalypse would do it"

"Are you sure about this? Good," he smiled as the witch nodded, "Since he obviously doesn't need us anymore we can go home. About damn time"

"Are you a complete imbecile? They are going to end the world!"

"Not my problem," Yozh shrugged, "Let chicks with sticks deal with it"

"Alright," Zemfira strolled towards him, "Let's say they do. Let's say everything turns out just fine and they stop the First. Who do you think they will come after next? Without Leshii we don't stand a chance! Whoever wins we are dead! No. All of this," the witch swept her skinny arm in the direction of the tablets, "is worth a lot to the slayers. You can give them the new agents Leshii hired, too. We'll trade it all for our guaranteed safety"

"Forget it, I'm not going anywhere near them. Too risky. What if they welsh? By the time it's over I'll be plenty safe in Moscow. Slayers will never get me extradited and they don't kill people."

"They kill vampires"

"Sucks to be you, then," Yozh chuckled and immediately regretted it. The witch vamped baring her teeth, her hand thrust forward sending his chair crashing into the wall.

"That's right, I suck. I can suck all the names and numbers I need from your brain and I can glamor my voice to set up the meets. Thing is, the memory recovery spell has about a ten percent damage rate and I'd rather not risk it if I don't have to. Do I have to? Imagine the worst case slayer deal scenario, Yozh. They welsh and you spend the rest of your life stuffing yourself with spaghetti and meatballs in some neat Italian prison. Now what scenario do you imagine if you welsh on me?"

"I don't think I have the imagination," the fat man grumbled, getting up.

"Good boy. Now fetch me Martin's magic supplies from the closet over there. You are pretty good with the living, but I'll show you how to interrogate the dead"

...

Dawn still had the key to the apartment. It traveled with her to Russia, Ukraine, Peru, and Germany. Even when she decided to live at the Clubhouse she kept it with her, always in her pants or a coat pocket. She stood in front of the door holding the silver metal triangle. It wasn't her home anymore. The proper thing would be to ring the bell, but when will she get another chance to use the key? Why is it even important? She reached for the keyhole when the lock clicked and the door opened seemingly by itself.

"How long were you planning to stand there?"

Dawn walked in and the door closed behind her. Willow was sitting in the comfy chair wrapped in a blanket. Air conditioning was off and the temperature inside was at least ten degrees higher than in the car. Dawn could almost feel her deodorant kicking into overdrive. The witch, on the other hand, shivered lightly as she sipped a large steaming cup of coco.

"Still cold?"

"It's getting better, but I'm definitely not messing with my body like that again"

"If you didn't put yourself in stasis the poison would have killed you long before Helga could drain it out"

"I know, and I'm definitely not getting poisoned like that again, either"

"Not getting poisoned is a pretty good goal to shoot for in and of itself, " the girl smiled, but the redhead did not respond in kind. It suddenly occurred to Dawn that she couldn't recall a single time Willow smiled at her since the massacre at the clubhouse.

"You've packed kind of light," the witch nodded towards the small suitcase at the girl's feet.

"I'll be looking for Angel in city sewers. I don't think I'll need too many outfits"

"This may be a longer trip than you expect," the witch said taking another long sip of her coco, "Unfortunately I have to tell you why, but, please, don't say anything to Buffy. You may need to visit two cities because..."

"You didn't have Angel's personal effects," Dawn interrupted, "So the best you could do was a locator spell for a vampire with a soul which revealed both Angel and Spike and you don't know which one is which"

"You know Spike is alive? How?"

"Andrew blabbed. I just finished debriefing him on the Belarus mission and was mulling stuff over in my head, staring out at nowhere, which just happened to be his direction. I guess he was already taking Dasha's death pretty hard and I may have been a little harsh on him, too. He thought I was staring him down so he started spilling all kinds of things. He says I scare the living daylights out of him," she chuckled.

"It's not just him," the redhead mumbled into her cup, "How come you didn't tell Buffy?"

"She's got enough things to worry about. What about you? You've known a lot longer. Why didn't you say anything? Were you the one..."

"I didn't do it!" Willow shouted slamming the cup on the table, "Why does everyone think I would do it? I've learned my lesson, I'm not bringing people back from the dead anymore."

"Then why?"

"I'm not a fan of Spike, much less of Buffy and Spike. Those two were drifting way too close and I don't want them to pick up where they left of. What Buffy needs now is a stable, healthy, long-term relationship. She has already done the vampire thing to death, literally, several times"

"I won't tell"

"Good. So where do you want to go, Chicago or San Francisco?"

"You want me to choose?"

"This trip was your idea. You are the one who thinks Angel has Wolfram&Heart's data archives. I thought you might have some clue as to which city he's at"

"Angel is probably in San Francisco, but it doesn't matter since the archives are just as likely to be with Spike"

"If it's Chicago I can teleport you now. Otherwise you'll need to wait two hours. It's room cleaning time on the West Coast; we don't want to give the maid a heart attack."

"I need to drop off something for Buffy first," Dawn replied, "Then off to the Windy City"

As the girl disappeared into the bedroom the witch wrapped the blanket around herself even tighter and descended to the floor. Setting her cup next to her, she dunked her finger into the coco and proceeded to complete the strawberry jam diagram already sketched out on the hardwood.

...

Buffy stood outside the conference door for a second then glanced at the empty mug in her hand. Coffee, that sounds like a worthwhile destination. The fifth floor break room already had one patron. Giles was sitting at the small table; his glasses lay in front of him. He seemed to be trying to make out the fine print on a metal can with Samira's Persian tea. Judging by the cloth towel covering the lid and the snout of a small ceramic pot on the counter he had a batch of it brewing already.

"Done so soon?" he inquired as Buffy squeezed by in the direction of the espresso machine.

"Willow and Parreli can finish up with Zemfira; I just had to get out. How about you?"

"Yozh was extremely cooperative," Giles answered setting down the tea and putting his glasses back on, "We have names, assignments, drop-off locations, contact numbers, safe houses, everything. It's being passed on to the local police agencies as we speak. Two more days and Leshii's entire network of assassins will cease to exist"

"I can't believe he gave everyone up just like that"

"As he put it so succinctly, 'Just because Leshii decided to hire a bunch of darkies that don't make them my comrades'. He did insist on safe transit to Moscow for the fourteen members still alive out of the original gang. Eight of them are in various prisons, the other six will report here tomorrow"

"Great," Buffy bristled as she tried to sip her still-much-too-hot Americano, "More scum to entertain"

"I take it you are not happy with the deal I made, are you?"

Buffy turned and stared at the concerned face of the Watcher.

"Is this the best deal you could have made? I suppose so. Did we need this deal? Absolutely. Am I happy about it? Like hell I am. Those two murdered thirty three slayers, twenty nine supporting staff, and hundreds of civilians. And they get away with it"

"No, they do not," Giles answered looking straight into the Slayer's eyes, "Zemfira's amnesty applies to past offenses only. She's a vampire. As hard as she may try, she will relapse, likely sooner than later, and we will hunt her down like the animal she is. As for Yozh, his terms were that we do not remove him from Russia, by legal means or otherwise. He believes he is safe from justice there, but what he doesn't know is that his government is run by the occult. St. Peter's Order may not be great friends of the Council, but they are sworn enemies of Wolfram&Hard. A joined effort at some point is inevitable and Yozh's lifetime imprisonment will be the first stipulation of any deal. I have no intention of letting their crimes go unpunished, I promise you"

"I believe you," Buffy nodded slightly, taking one more stab at her coffee.

"I sincerely appreciate that. I know things have been tense between us," he added after a slight pause, "I imagine you are still angry with me and will remain so for some time. However, you have been able to successfully separate your feelings from your work and that is a mark of a great leader."

"I've been told," she started slowly, "That a leader is different from a hero in that to be effective she must be able to sacrifice of others instead of herself. Whether I like it or not it seems I'm capable of doing so. I suppose if you can do the same to the people you care about the most it makes you an even better leader. I will keep you in your post, Giles. I will always trust you to do the right thing. But I will never trust you again to do right by me"

If the Watcher had a response she wasn't interested. Cup in hand she walked out of the break room and headed down the corridor with no particular destination in mind. It was last year, as Spike was being lured into a trap, that Giles stalled Buffy among the graves of Sunnydale by giving her a lesson on sacrifice. She refused to understand, she told him he had nothing more to teach her. She was wrong. If she wouldn't learn to make a sacrifice of a loved one then she would learn to accept being one.

...

Dawn sighed, almost tearfully, at her purple cotton blouse, but there was no way around this. She moved the fold-up table four times already; there was simply no place in the room where the ceiling wasn't dripping something. She climbed up on the chair and tied the blouse across two pipes above her laptop as a makeshift cover. Holding her left arm up was extremely painful and the installation took far longer than it should have. The last hour has given her a new appreciation for the effort that Leshii must put in to make his hideouts so hospitable. She got down and checked the power cable running from the outlet. These were wrapped tightly in white towels she lifted from the hotel. With the threat of short circuit addressed, Dawn finally turned on her laptop. Right on time, too. The sound of footsteps coming down the sewer corridor signaled her guests have arrived.

"There you are, bit," Spike said as he dumped a sack on Dawn's table, "I've got no idea how to work these things, so I brought you the whole bunch we grabbed from the computer room. You keep them. I'm not dragging the bloody bag around with me anymore. Brought you something else, too. This is Illyria. She and the First are old chums apparently"

Dawn looked over the vampire's companion. She was in her demonic form, blue hair flowing down the red and purple armor. The eyes were fixed to Dawn in an avert display of curiosity.

"Great," the girl replied trying not let the demon's unexpected reaction bother her, "Have you looked at them at all?" she addressed Spike as she fished a random disk drive from the bag and proceeded to hook it up to the laptop.

"Encrypted. Fred would have cracked them, but you can't keep this one," he nodded at Illyria, "Still for more than five minutes. Are you injured?" he asked noticing the girl's lopsided posture.

"A little incident on a side trip," Dawn replied punching keys on her computer, "No biggie"

"You are unusually quite, pet," Spike turned to the demon, "You could at least say 'Hello'"

"I wanted to hear It speak," she answered, half hushed, "I never heard It speak before. Many tried to get It to speak, but It did not care"

"Dawn is a 'she', pet, not an 'it'," the smirk on the vampire's face was much too wide to be sincere. He realized a sentence ago that Illyia was somehow able to recognize the Key in Dawn. If this unpredictable deity decided to take the girl he wasn't sure he'd be able to stop her. Dawn's poker face was much better than Spike's. The extra confidence no doubt stemmed from the shotgun which was taped under the table and pointing straight at Illyria's midsection.

"It is a She now. It was not so the last time I saw It. Do you not recognize me?" she spoke directly to the girl for the first time, "It is this pathetic form. Sometimes I don't even recognize myself. I wish to fight the First Evil for you. I have always found that creature blabbering and meddlesome. This time its disembodied state can no longer protect it"

"Doesn't need to," said Dawn, kicking off a decryption utility on the drive, "As far as we know It's invincible"

"More trickery!" the demons eyes flashed with anger, "It must be infected by their memories. They corrupt everything they touch, even in death"

"They?" Spike looked over at Illyria struggling to make sense of the angry ramble.

"Humans. Look at us! We are all victims of their weaknesses. Bound within these limited shells, nothing but shadows of our true selves"

"Don't knock it for everybody, blue hair. I've seen pure bred vampires. Ugly buggers. I like the way I am"

"You would sacrifice power for appearance?"

"Power isn't everything, pet"

"You are a fool, power is everything!" there was something almost desperate in that scream. Illyria fell silent, the glow in her eyes faded and disappeared, "This is their greatest trick," she practically whispered now, "They make want to be like them"

"Precious thing, isn't she?" the blonde vampire smirked at Dawn, "I get to listen to this rubbish all day. You know, when Angel said we should split up, he didn't mean just from him. He meant we each go our way"

"I don't have a way," the demon responded looking at the girl, instead, "My guide in this demented world has perished. I chose this half-breed as a replacement because I find him amusing"

"You are somebody's guide?" Dawn chuckled, "That is amusing"

"Hey, " the vampire raised his voice somewhat not sharing in the joke, "I've been around the block, bit, I know stuff, I can do things"

"I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!"

"Why does she speak in this strange voice?"

"She's doing a Fredo impression, pet. Poor one at that. I never said I was that smart," Spike spoke to Dawn now, "Not like Price anyway. But he's dead now, and she's not, and she might look mean and strong, but she's hopelessly confused and she needs me"

"I am a god!" Illyria snarled, "I don't need anybody"

"Then leave"

The blue haired demon stared at her agitator for a moment.

"You don't tell me what to do," she replied hesitantly, "I will leave when I choose to do so"

"Bottom line, little bit, " Spike spoke after a chuckle, "When the chips are down we all pull our weight the best we can. What about that Immortal fellow, is he on board with the whole mob war shindig?"

"They are not together anymore," Dawn replied on auto pilot, then pulled her face away from the screen, "How did you even know they were? Was Angel keeping tabs on Buffy?"

"Yeah, stalker like isn't he? I told him that's no way to treat a girl like that, but you know Angel. All stubborn and bad hair. So what's the new guy like?"

"There is no new guy. Dodging drive-by's kind of puts a cramp in your dating life"

"So.. does she say anything about me?"

"No, since she still thinks you are dead," the girl answered through her teeth. It was becoming a real effort not to smile at Spike's desperate attempt to maintain a matter of fact tone on this subject.

"Right," the vampire sighed.

"Well that's how you wanted it," As funny as he looked Dawn was beginning to feel sorry for the guy, "Do you want me tell her you're alive?"

"No sense bothering the girl. Not bloody likely to stay this way for long"

"We are already fighting on two fronts. The last thing we need right now is a war with Wolfram&Hart. You'll just have to stick it out for a little while until we can free up some resources"

"Well, look at you, all grownup talking! 'Free up resources'," Spike smirked, "Hey, Devil with a Blue Dress, you heard the girl, she needs resources. Do something useful already. Talk about the First, make us some tea"

Illyria turned to the vampire with a look that made Dawn instantly reach for the trigger underneath the table.

"He was joking about the tea," she said quickly, putting on her best smile, "He must do that a lot. Personally I like it, but I can totally see how it can be more annoying than amusing"

"What I find amusing is that I can crush his scull into his heart so fast the friction would set his body on fire," the demon low voice boomed in the dead silence of the sewers, "See," she turned back to Dawn, with what looked like a slight twitch in the left corner of her mouth, "I can joke, too"

...

The smell hit Buffy's nostrils right upon entrance; a weird mixture of incense and sulfur. At first she couldn't see anything: the ventilation in the lab chased the steam from the cauldron to the door. A few steps past the milky veil she finally could make out Parreli stirring a gray concoction with a dark metal pole while Willow chanted something holding the Hindu idol over her head.

"I think we are ready," she said putting down the little statue and turning to Buffy who just emerged from the mist, Scythe in hand, "Just a disclaimer, it may not work the first time. Some ingredient re-balancing may be required. Thankfully we have enough for at least eight attempts"

"What is she doing here?" the gray-haired watcher asked suspiciously, noticing Zemfira walking behind the Slayer.

"I like watching things go 'Puff'!" she answered cheerfully and quickly climbed on top of the ten foot chemicals storage shelf, "Better view," she answered the questioning glances.

"Don't mind her," said Buffy approaching the cauldron, "So all I have to do is drop the Scythe in and the Creature is history? Sounds simple enough"

"Yes," the witch responded with a slight indignation, "After four months of fourteen-hour-a-day research and a dozen ingredient gathering missions it's that simple"

"As Miss Rosenberg has pointed out earlier, we may need several attempts," Parreli added.

"No," Buffy replied, "I'm pretty sure it will work the first time" With that she swung the Scythe high into the air. Like lightening the blade came down, slicing the watcher's head into the brew where it vaporized on impact; the lifeless body dropped at the foot of the cauldron. Willow screamed in horror. Zemfira squealed, laughing and clapping her hands in delight. Only Buffy herself was left completely unperturbed.

"Willow. Willow!" she called out louder, but still calmly, "Breathe. What's the matter with you? You act like you've never seen a corpse before"

"You, you are the matter!" the witch screamed, her eyes wide as saucers, "With the swinging and the beheading!" Willow mouth kept opening and closing as she struggled for words while her eyes kept shifting helplessly from the body to the calm as a rock Buffy, "You see nothing wrong with this picture?"

"No blood? That's expected"

"No head! Parreli has no head! That's not expected! What the heck, Buffy?" At once the tantrum came to an abrupt end as Willow's expression turned from shocked to confused, "Wait, there's no blood. Why is there no blood?"

"The reason blood ordinarily spurts from a severed head," Zemfira answered authoritatively from her high seat, "Is because blood pressure in the vessels caused by the pumping heart is so much higher than atmospheric pressure outside. Now, if the heart is not beating, then the surface tension.."

"He was already dead," Willow mumbled staring at the headless body before her, then looked up at the Slayer, "You knew. She told you. How..?"

"It wasn't so hard," the vampire responded once more. She jumped off the shelf and strolled towards the corpse with a satisfied smile, "For a competent witch that is. Lucky for the Slayer she finally got one when she did. The way he had you wrapped around..."

"She smelled him," Buffy cut the speech short.

"Excuse me?" said Willow unsure she heard it right.

"She's a vampire, he's a corpse. She smelled him rotting. Didn't hear any heartbeat either"

"Now why did you have to go and say that?" Zemfira pouted, "I was just having a little harmless teasing fun! After all of this I think I deserve it"

"Do you really want to get into what you deserve?" Buffy snapped. The little witch gulped and took a step back.

"Good point," she giggled nervously, "Leaving now," and scampered out the door.

Buffy turned to Willow who crouched next Parreli's body shaking her head in disbelief.

"How long?" the witch asked quietly

"Best guess - two weeks after Dawn's kidnapping. The trip to Milan was the only time he was gone for more than a day"

"All this time. Do you have any idea what this means?"

"Yep," Buffy nodded, "Parreli provoked Stefka into helping with Leshii then sabotaged the plan. The First has been playing us all along"

"Well, yes, but I was talking about the Scythe. Every document we had went through him. If there was anything actually useful he destroyed it or worse, altered it. How will we ever know what we are supposed to do?"

"Dawn's archive scavenging trip idea looks better by the minute, doesn't it?"

"Angel doesn't have all of Wolfram&Hart's files. What if there's nothing on the Scythe?"

"Well," Buffy turned the weapon over in her hand, "Perhaps this is the Slayer bias talking, but all in all it's just a big axe. Maybe that's exactly how I'm supposed to use it"

"The Creature is impervious to any weapon except the one used to channel the power that created It wielded by the personification of the said power," the redhead pronounced dryly, "Can it really be this simple?"

"Occam's razor, Willow. You didn't make me watch 'Contact' three times for nothing"

The witch rolled her eyes.

"Jody Foster is a goddess, no argument, but even I wouldn't stake the fate of the world on a word of her character. Then again you already bet a man's life on a word of a vampire"

"And Dawn. She left me a note before you teleported her. It said she had reliable evidence that the First had a spy on the Board or close to it. Parreli was one of suspects on the list"

"What?" the redhead blinked at the Slayer thoroughly confused, "You never told me that"

Buffy swore at herself for not keeping quiet, but there was no turning back

"You and Giles were the other suspects. Not my words!" she quickly added as Willow's jaw dropped all the way to the floor, "Take it up with Dawn when she comes back"

"But you believed her!"

"Not for a second"

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I was afraid you would"

The redhead grimaced at the seemingly nonsensical answer then gradually the expression changed to complete horror.

"Oh, my God! You're right, I don't trust me to even be me! I've grown that pathetic, haven't I? Ew!" she jumped to her feet, shaking her hands as though something was stuck to them.

"Willow,"

"No," the witch quickly cut short any potential comforting, "This is good. I've been angry at myself before, I even hated myself, but I've never been disgusted with myself. I think finally hit that elusive bottom. Excuse me," she pushed past somewhat startled Buffy, "I need to take a shower now. Ew!" she screamed again catching her reflection in the mirror.

Buffy wrapped up her quiet chuckle at Willow's exit with a sigh of relief, which was immediately followed by a disappointed groan.

"What the hell? I had two teleporter witches here and somehow still managed to get stuck with corpse hauling duties! Can't win them all, I guess." She hoisted Parreli's decapitated body over her shoulder, grabbed the Scythe with her free hand and headed out of the lab.

...

The gym seemed to the second most popular destination at the clubhouse after the cafeteria. It was so jam packed full of visiting slayers that Dawn had to literally squeeze her way through the door. The biggest crowd gathered around the mats where an Aborigine slayer was the center of a lopsided sparring session. With all her five opponents apparently from the African chapter, Xander had to be nearby. Dawn stood on her tip-toes trying to spot him, but there was only one familiar face she could find.

"Kate!" she pulled on the hand of the freckled slayer, "Have you seen Xander?"

"He is around here somewhere," the girl answered as she popped out of the dense circle of gawkers, "If you came for a workout, sign up quickly. It's literally a two hour wait for any machine"

"Wow. I guess it explains why you are here. Planning some after poker calisthenics?"

"No," the girl's mood suddenly soured, "Samira kicked me out of the game two days ago. She said she's tired of always seeing me there, hogging the spot. It's called being a regular! It should come with free drinks and air miles! She knows nothing about a running a game. I should just start my own"

Dawn's head made an instant half turn, "You do remember you're sharing the suite with Stefka?"

"Oh," Kate sighed, her shoulders slumping even further down, "I could hold it in the bedroom, " she perked up a bit, "If there's no liquor and we are really quiet then...no one will show up, will they?" she sighed again, "Oh, well. It's not all bad. I have money now. Some of which is yours, actually," the slayer handed Dawn two wrinkled bills.

"You don't owe me"

"What is this, Summers disease? I pay back my debts, end of story!"

"That's just it, you already did. Before I left Samira relayed your forty. I think I saw her give money to Daria, too"

The ginger slayer gave Dawn an utterly baffled stare.

"I never told her to give anyone money. Is this some kind of a prank?"

"Not my prank," Dawn shrugged, "I got mine, we're settled; that's all I know"

As the still confused Kate wondered off, Dawn moved to traverse the circumference around the mats. Xander must be here to watch his slayers spar in what increasingly looked like a mismatched battle. The yellow highlights in the Australian girl's mane almost made Dawn dizzy as the slayer twirled at the incoming punches, then, intercepting one of the fists flying toward her, spun her opponent the other way taking two more down in the process. The crowed just awed as the display.

"You're it!" a familiar voice accompanied the tap on her shoulder.

"Xander!" Dawn exclaimed happily as she turned around, "No, wait!" she shrieked as the man swept her into a tight hug.

"What?"

"Bruised rib, bruised rib!" the girl squealed, contorting in pain.

"I'm sorry! Are you okay?" Xander asked letting Dawn go and taking half a step back

"A little accident on the away mission," the girl answered with a pained smile as she rubbed her side, "No biggie. Just no hugs or friendly kicks in the ribs"

"Got it. It's good to see you"

"Not as good as seeing you," Dawn replied with absolute sincerity. It's been six months since the last time that happened. The rustic life at the savannah compound made him even thinner and tanner. He must have lost forty pounds since Sunnydale, a bit much perhaps, but he seemed healthy, happy, and kind of taller, "I missed you. I'm so glad you came!"

"Of course I came. You know me: wherever there's trouble, there I always am. Being in it, mostly, but not this time. This time I'm bringing to Italy the deadliest African army since Hannibal"

"Is that why you still got the eye-patch? Makes you more war-like?"

"Exactly," Xander poked the air with his finger, "In fact, you might hear my slayers refer to me as 'Mzungu anguka mingi'. It means 'ferocious one-eyed lion'"

"No," Dawn smiled, "It means 'white man who falls down a lot'"

"You speak Swahili, I did not expect that"

"I kind of did. Though pretty much everyone knows that 'lion' in Swahili is 'simba'"

"You are right," Xander sighed, "Leave it to me to forget the educational value of Disney cartoons"

"Speaking of toons, did you see the loony move that girl just pulled on your slayers?"

"Yep," the young man nodded, "I've been watching her all day. Her name is Kyleema Perry. She's the top slayer in the Asia-Pacific branch. Word is she is even better than your Stefka"

"Says who, her underlings?" Dawn twisted her lips in a scornful smirk.

"Kyleema doesn't have any underlings"

"Well, that's the end of that discussion. If she really were good she'd be leading the branch, or, at least, their special ops"

"She can't, she has issues communicating"

"That's such baloney!" the girl scoffed, "We've got classes for that"

"We've got classes for being a deaf mute?"

"No, I suppose we don't," Dawn voice went dead as she suddenly realized the glances the Aborigine girl was throwing her way in between the kicks and dodges were not accidental, "She reads lips, doesn't she?"

"Yes, you just made a total ass of yourself," Xander answered with a lighthearted smile.

"Great. Thankfully I've already done the stupidest thing of my life this week, so this doesn't bring me down at all"

"What did you do?"

"Buffy didn't tell you? Must still be too hoarse from all the yelling. I guess you'll find out at the Board meeting. If you are okay waiting two hours I'd rather talk about something else"

"How about talking about something else somewhere else?"

"Yes, please," Dawn smiled taking the arm offered to her. Behind them came a loud thud of several bodies hitting the mats simultaneously. Judging by the applause that followed the sparing session was over.

...

Willow felt an unexpectedly pleasant sensation stir up in her upper stomach area when she walked into the Board room. This was the first time since the ratification of the founding charter that every member was here in person and seeing every chair full sent her memories back to those hectic, but happier times. Hold on a second, every chair?

"Why is she in Parreli's seat?" she protested loudly, pointing in Zemfira's direction.

"You have the guy killed, you get his spot. That's how it usually works," the little vampire responded nonchalantly.

"Because otherwise she'll be the one sitting next to me," Buffy answered waving Willow over.

"Hey," Zemfira pouted, "I have feelings, too. Sort of"

"I think we are good to start," Buffy looked over at Giles as Willow made it to her seat.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," the Watcher began, rising to his feet, "You were summoned here because we are finally in possession of sufficient information about the First Evil's plans to deal with threat It poses; the threat which, I am sorry to say, is grave and eminent. A few days ago the First has obtained the last ingredient necessary to construct a weapon capable of ending life as we know it; a weapon that has already been used once before to great devastation. We shall start with some background information on its origin and its effects. We will then discuss any and all actions that we must take to ensure this horror is not unleashed a second time," Giles stopped to clear his throat, then continued, "As many of you know, demons were the dominant force in this world as recently as ten thousand years ago. With a few rare exceptions humans were either slaves or prey. One such exception was a geographically isolated tribe; whether by water or mountains is impossible to say with certainty. What is important is that undisturbed by demons they evolved into an advanced society built around their ability to command elemental magics. These people believed, as some do today, that these magics hold the key to the secretes of Creation itself. To avoid the temptation of such power, a single individual was only permitted to learn a single element. When something truly transformative needed to be done the heads of each school, the archmagi, would come together to combine their knowledge. As their powers grew so did their nation. The magi began to venture outside of their enclave where they found the rest of humanity in dire straights. The miserable existence led by their kind was particularly disturbing to the Earth magi, who considered themselves stewards of all living things. While they were more than capable of defeating individual demons they were too few in number to affect any meaningful change. As the magi sought for ways to cull the demons on a grand scale they ran against the fundamental law of magic. Since every spell has a balancing consequence then the price for ridding the world of demons would surely be unacceptably high. In time, however, they came to see this limitation not as a limitation at all, but a solution they sought for so long," Giles picked up a glass of water standing on the table, but seemingly changed his mind and simply held it; the liquid swooshing slightly in its container, "There was a time none of this existed and then it did. If the balance is a fundamental property, then a force that can create something out of nothing must have a counterpart that creates nothing out of something. The magi called this force, the Void. This was not an easy leap. Our very existence appears to contradict the notion of such power. The answer to this incongruity lies in the multiplicity of worlds. It is a well known fact that Creation is split into thousands of dimensions. The Void is similarly split, but in a different order. The destructive force present in our world is tuned to a different dimension. If a demon would cross over from there it would be annihilated the instance it steps through the portal. The same would happen to us in one of the multitudes of other worlds. Armed with this knowledge the Earth magi brought a proposal to the other three clans. If they were to open a portal that would focus the Void from all, but one dimensions into ours, they could purge out of existence every entity that did not originate in this world as mankind did," Giles stopped, finally taking to his water glass, but not out of thirst. A lecture of this density required time to process even by the brightest minds, "What I recite here in minutes has actually taken decades. The trials the Earth magi did on their own, the combined efforts that followed. Through these experiments it was discovered that hosting the portal inside a human would provide the necessary filter for our dimension. This human had to posses an inordinate magic resistance so as not be torn apart by the portal opening within him. To overcome this level of resistance for their imbuement spell the magi needed a proper astronomical alignment to supplement their powers, one that comes only every sixty four years. As that day arrived the archmagi gathered to combine their elemental powers. The Earth clan readied the host; the archmage of Air channeled her power through the eye; the archmage of Fire – through the heart; the archmage of Water – through the kidney. The imbuement incantation was then interwoven with an invulnerability spell to protect the newly minted Wielder from a demonic retaliatory strike.

"Let me guess," Xander spoke up in a first of many upcoming interruptions, "That's what really screwed them when things went sideways as they always do"

"Experimenting with a force of pure destruction is not an easy task," Giles continued, "Too many assumptions had to be made and it was inevitable that something would be missed. To say that mankind is native to this world is an oversimplification. While the design for our bodies has indeed originated here, our souls come from another place entirely. The magi knew that, but believed humans' portal coil would protect them. They were wrong. The Wielder's soul was the first to disintegrate. Realizing they lost control of their weapon, the magi tried to destroy the portal, but to no avail. Their magics were simply absorbed by the Void and the invulnerability spell held up against all physical attacks. All they could do was collapse their capital on top of the Wielder. Buried under the rubble the Void at least stayed in one spot and its influence expanded more slowly. From the tablets it is hard to say how long the portal remained active. Weeks, perhaps months. Every pure demon that did not flee this world was destroyed. The population of demon hybrids collapsed to just a few percent of their former number. Human tribes were decimated as well. Millions have perished before the magi finally discovered a way to break the spell. They created three blades of diamond, ruby, and sapphire. Each could be used to break the link between the Earth host and the element donated as a body part by the respective clan. Unfortunately, the invulnerability spell persisted, even with the Wielder carved up. The few remaining members of Fire, Water, and Air clans took their artifacts and hid them to prevent the Void from being reconstituted. They then destroyed all their spell books and scattered among the primitive human tribes vowing to let all, but the most rudimentary magics die with them, least their mistakes are repeated"

"So only Air, Fire, and Water magi fought the Void? What happened to the Earth magi?"

"They went nuts," Buffy answered Stefka with a light smile.

"The surviving Earth magi refused to accept their culpability in that disaster. Most of them interpreted human vulnerability to the Void as a sign that mankind is an imposter species, no better than demons, and should be purged from this world to make room for a purer race," Giles expounded on the Slayer's summary, "The Necromancer Order was founded. A much smaller faction drew the opposite conclusion. They proclaimed that the Void demonstrated that all the species have equal claim to this dimension and instead of being exterminated demons should be harnessed for the betterment of mankind"

"That's you," Zemfira smiled, nudging Kennedy with her elbow.

"The First Slayer was one of their creations," the Watcher echoed

"If the Shadow Men were Earth magi, were the Guardians elemental magi as well?"

This time the response to Stefka's question came from Helga.

"As understandably fascinating as the Slayer lore is to some of the members of this Board," the elderly witch spoke, shifting anxiously in her seat, "Should we perhaps move on to the First Evil's role in all of this?"

"I second," Zemfira called out cheerfully, "We are wasting precious moments here. The old Korean dude looks like he might keel over any second"

"It's all pretty clear," Xander spoke shooting a glance Kim's way. The wizard expression clearly indicated that even acknowledging the vampire's existence, much less her words, was beneath him, "The First got a hold of the creepy relics. Leshii is the new Wielder and the Apocalyptic wackiness ensues. One thing I don't quite get. Wouldn't the Void kill the First, too?"

"In Its original form, yes," Willow nodded, "But the side effect of the Slayer activation spell transformed It into flesh. The Creature is a brand new animal native to this world and thus immune to the Void's effects"

"Which where Plan B comes in"

"I think the First is a little too big now to be aborted, Buffy"

"Plan A is to stop the First from casting the spell," the Slayer went on trying not to smile at Xander's comment, "If that doesn't work, we'll still go after the Creature with the Scythe. Our theory is that when It dies, It will transform back to the incorporeal form making It vulnerable to the Void and hence very cooperative. It used the memories of the dead magi to open the portal. It should also know how to make the weapons to shut it down"

"New weapons? What happened to the originals? The way lecture was going I kind of assumed that's what the map Dawn was putting together is all about, isn't it?"

"It is," Buffy answered reluctantly, "But the First had that dagger destroyed. We are still confirming the locations of the other two, but it's a safe bet they are gone as well"

"I don't understand," Kim has finally joined the discussion, "When I inquired about the map yesterday I was told the reconstruction would take another thirty two hours. Where is your information coming from? Was Leshii somehow able to learn the location with his half ?" the wizard looked over at Zemfira who suddenly exploded into outright hollering.

"This is priceless!" she eked out in between fits of laughter, "She didn't just give him the amulet either, did she? Leshii is immune to magic so he couldn't destroy it...she actually..." the witch's voice trailed into gurgling. Tears streamed from her eyes as she banged her palm on the table.

"Wait," Xander was the first to make sense of the ramble, "Is that the all time stupidest thing Dawn said she did this week?"

At once every chair in the room turned from facing the writhing vampire to Buffy at the other end of the conference table.

"Based on the information she had..."

"What information?" the ordinarily quite wizard's voice boomed as half hushed comments broke out across the room, "Why wasn't this brought before the Council? Who makes these decisions?"

"They've been made. It's done. You have questions or complaints I will address every one of them when the world doesn't end Monday. Anyone not interested in discussing that, leave now," the quiet that followed Buffy's gaze as it traversed the room only emphasized Zemfira's nonstop merriment in the far corner, "Would someone, please, shut her up?"

In an instant Kennedy's right arm shot out, grabbed the back of the vampire head and smashed it against the table. The witch bounced back in her chair using both hands to cover her bleeding nose and mouth as well as quiet the giggling that just wouldn't go away.

"So, Monday," Xander decided to break the uncomfortable silence that followed the outburst, "Is that when all the lucky stars come together?"

"Monday is when the alignment ends," Giles answered, "It started three days ago"

"'Three days?'" Helga repeated, "Why do you think the spell hasn't already been cast?"

"He wants to be the one who kills us," Stefka replied quietly, "He must know the Void is fatal to him. He will delay the spell till the last possible moment so he can see us die at his hands"

"Tough noogies, then," Xander smirked, "We just don't show. Apocalypse solved"

"Even if you force him to chase you, Leshii still has a better chance of seeing all of you dead with the Void than without it," Zemfira spoke, sniffling, "He'll go with the odds"

"Regardless, we can't take that chance. Even if we can't stop the spell, if we get there in time we get to use Plan B. The First has to be there to open the portal and It won't be able to teleport away once the Void is active nearby. If we wait for Leshii to come to us we'll never find It"

"With all due respect, miss Summers, I believe you overstating the usefulness of Plan B. Even if you decorporialized It, the First Evil will doubtlessly withhold Its cooperation as long as possible, resulting in an unacceptable loss of life," Kim's unsatiated anger came off clearly in the tone of his voice, but the words were true and Buffy acknowledged them in kind.

"That's where Plan C comes in. We have some knowledge of elemental magics. We know how the weapons work in principle. We start on one ourselves, now, right after this meeting."

"A two day head start on a project that will last weeks, if not months. We'll be measuring our dead in millions"

"That's where Plan D comes in"

"What Plan D?" Buffy turned to Willow completely baffled, "We don't have a plan D"

"You can have mine," the witch smiled, "Martin McClure wasn't just translating the tablets, he has also done some detailed research on how the spell actually works. Zemfira was helping me go over his memories last night and we found a few key items," she paused suddenly feeling the eyes of the room upon her, "Poking holes into thousands of dimensions is very expensive, so despite the enormous amount of energy that goes into the spell, the initial portal is tiny. As it absorbs matter and magic it expands, increasing its pull and absorbing more as a result. What is important for us here is that the power up effect on the portal is discrete, not continuous"

"In English, please," Buffy grimaced

"The portal will not expand until whatever it is absorbing is absorbed fully"

"In other words, " Buffy started with budding excitement, "if we get to it early enough with magic large enough, we can jam it?"

"No," Helga responded in a voice seemingly design to dampened any enthusiasm, "'small' has a different connotation in this case. It means it can only take one item at a time, but the absorption itself would be instantaneous regardless of its power"

"That's right," Willow nodded unfettered by any nay saying, "What we need is to continuously generate new power to feed into the Void"

"What does that?"

"There's only one thing in this world that can reliably generate magic out of its surroundings," Zemfira spoke up, in a hurry to be the first one to answer this particular question, "We call it a witch"

"Is she joking?" the Slayer turned to Willow, her voice no longer excited, but agitated, "Because she's better be joking"

"It needs to be done, Buffy, and I'm the most qualified to do it"

"The spell must be cast continuously," the wizard's voice was no longer angry. If anything, he sounded almost concerned, "Your concentration cannot be interrupted. Not for food, nor drink, nor sleep"

"I can be fed intravenously"

"Can you sleep intravenously, too? What happens if she pauses?" Buffy's actual question was addressed to Kim rather than Willow as the more impartial source, but it was Zemfira who once again couldn't pass the opportunity to be the bearer of 'good' news.

"Once forged, the link cannot be broken," the vampire prattled giddily, "If there's no magic flowing to jam the portal, the Void will take whatever is there, namely her soul"

"I heard enough; you are not doing it!"

"Yes, I am," Willow stated calmly and firmly

"It might take weeks to forge a weapon, maybe months, you can't hold out that long"

"Maybe not, but the delay will save millions of lives"

"No, Willow"

"Yes, Buffy. Look at my face. You've seen it before, you know it means"

"You are constipated?" Zemfira called out squinting pensively at Willow's expression.

"I'm resolved! This is not some kind of a redemption sacrifice, Buffy," the redhead quickly reverted to her previous calm demeanor, "I don't plan on dying. I'm rooting for Plan A all the way, and if I do have to cast this spell I'm counting on you doing everything possible to save me. All of you. Not you, " she pointed to Zemfira who nodded understandingly.

"Alright," Buffy eked out a smile, "We do as you say. Mr. Kim, this leaves you in charge of Plan C. Please assemble your team and get started as soon as you are able. Helga, we will also need a contingent of battle witches to neutralize the First's Necromancers. Giles, you will arbitrate if there's any overlap between the resource assignments. Xander, Stefka, Kennedy, you are with me. We'll need to come up with a battlefield strategy"

"Before we break up, I have a question for the witches in the room," Kennedy spoke up quickly as the rest of the Board were pulling out of their chairs, "I'm assuming we plan to teleport to wherever the Void is getting assembled. Last time I checked the First was pretty effective at stopping anyone from transporting where It didn't want them to"

"Cue the mountain, please," Willow addressed Buffy who turned on the nearby projector, "We've got a bunch of satellite images of the area. You'll see some of these again during your planning session. I think it's number six," she said as the Slayer scrolled through, "No, I guess not. Okay, it's number eight, I wasn't that far off. The 'X' marks the flat top peak in the Pamir range. Relative to the mountains around it, it's pretty short and outwardly unremarkable. Haven't been there yet, but we are bringing in a local warlock who has. He'll teleport me there and I'll be able to bring the rest of you. Hopefully. There is a teleportation dampening spell in place, but the mountain is a focal point amplifying incoming magic. The First needed this location to get the most out of the stellar alignment, but that choice also compromised Its defenses. Based on my latest calculations I can get us within sixty feet of the peak. Unfortunately, there's no room sixty feet off the peak. In fact, the nearest plateau big enough to land all of our troops is two kilometers down."

"Narrow pathways means ambushes," Kennedy mused, "But I'm more worried about the actual climb. Two kilometers uphill over rough terrain right before the battle is not a good idea, even for slayers"

"I'm working on getting us closer, but you should definitely plan it both ways..."

"Previous slide, if you don't mind" Zemfira snapped her fingers, bringing up a wider scale snapshot of the area before Buffy even had chance to consider the request, "We teleport here"

"Sounds good," Kennedy smirked as the vampire pressed her finger in the middle of the projection, "A forty kilometer jog before the climb would be a welcome warmup"

"That's a Tajik air base, or, to be precise, a Russian airbase in Tajikistan ran by brigadier general Tolikov. The general commands a fleet of six heavy transport helicopters that he uses to bring in heroin from Afghanistan. Since we are in between harvest seasons at the moment he'll be up for transporting anything for the right price"

"Do you know him personally?" Giles inquired

"No, but Yozh does"

"This may actually be a good idea," said Buffy looking over the table for feedback.

"Of course it is," Willow scoffed, "She's the only one who's been to that airbase which means she'll have to be the one to teleport us which will exhaust her power which means she gets to skip out on the actual battle"

"Well, you wouldn't drag along a defenseless little critter just for the fun of it, would you?" the child vampire smiled widely and batted her giant eyelashes, "You are not the kind of people"

"No, unfortunately we are not," Buffy sighed, "Giles check with Yozh about this Tolikov character"

"With Yozh and his men we get a few more options in our battle strategy," Xander added.

"Maybe. We'll see. Is everyone clear on what they are doing? Then go do it. Xander, Stefka, Kennedy hang back. We are having our meeting in here," Buffy pressed her finger into the back key scrolling the slides to the beginning as the rest of the Board filed out the door.

...

The slight squeak of the front door barely registered in Dawn's mind as she eagerly perused the files on her laptop. The absence of footsteps following made her fingers pause mid-air over the touch pad. She turned her chair thirty degrees and stared at the visitor.

"What do you want?" she inquired of the little vampire in her doorway.

"Just thought I'd visit. May I?" Zemfira smiled as sweetly as she could

"No. What do you want?"

Realizing she wasn't getting invited inside the witch let her smile turn into a more sincere scowl.

"I wanted to see you. Now that everyone knows everything, I wanted to see your face; see how much smugness you've got left there. You thought you were better than everyone right from the start. Leshii would use and discard anyone around him as it suited him, me including, but not you. No, it could never happen to you. You were his soul mate!" she chuckled mockingly, "You thought you were so special and you were. He played a lot of people, but no one got fucked this royally. Almost makes me feel sorry for you. Almost," she peered deep into Dawn's eyes looking for some signs of a breakdown on that unexpectedly emotionless face, when a hand grabbed her shoulder and twisted her around.

"What did I tell you about coming into the dorms?"

Zemfira shriveled under the stern gaze of the elder Summers.

"The living quarters are for the living?" she smiled apprehensively

"Exactly," the Slayer pulled the hand radio from her belt, "This is Buffy to hallway patrols. If you see Zemfira roaming outside her designated basement area feel free to stake her. Over."

"You are joking right?" the vampire's fear was no longer play-acting, "This morning you said if I use magic inside the compound I also get staked. How am I supposed to get back to the basement?"

"Don't know," Buffy shrugged and walked inside the suite, "But based on the patrol rounds on this floor you have thirty seconds to figure it out," she smiled and shut the door in the witch's face.

"What do you think?" she addressed Dawn who was no longer trying to contain her laughter, "Hallway window then climbs down the wall?"

"I doubt it," the girl answered, "It's drizzling. My bet is the vents. She's small enough"

"You are probably right," Buffy replied taking a seat next to her sister, "Why are you still glued to the screen? I thought you already found everything there's to find on elemental magic"

"I did, not that there was much of it in these archives. Either Wolfram&Hart doesn't know any more than we do or they never digitized that info. I thought I'd do some generic research on the First and hopefully stumble upon something interesting"

"Did you?"

"As a matter of fact," Dawn finally looked away from the computer, " You remember Doc?"

"Who?"

"The demon sorcerer who bleed me to open the dimensional gates you jumped to your death through?"

"Vaguely"

"Well, it seems he's been on Wolfram&Hart's payroll for the past sixty years. Based on the accounting ledger his pay comes out of a budget for a project called 'DB'. Can't seem to find any info about it, though"

"What does that have to do with the First?"

"Apparently nothing. That's what makes it so weird"

Buffy stared at the girl for a second

"When was the last time you slept?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you checked out of the hotel in Chicago two days ago, you never requested a room at the Cleveland office, and I'm pretty sure you haven't lied down once since you got here, so I ask you again: when was the last time you slept?"

"I..," Dawn stumbled realizing that she was unsure of the answer herself.

"Aren't you tired?"

"Actually, now that you mention it, dead tired," the girl replied getting up from her chair with visible effort. She blinked a few times deliberately trying to clear her eyes that suddenly refused to stay open, "You are right, I think I should turn in. After all, there's an apocalypse tomorrow. Again. Are you coming?"

"In a bit," Buffy answered with a smile, "There are a few little things that need tidying up"

As the door to the bedroom closed, Buffy pulled the laptop towards herself to check the clock in the bottom right corner. An hour till lights out. Then another twenty minutes to make sure everyone's actually asleep. Might as well wait here till then.

...

The small yellow circle of the flashlight zigzagged across the ceiling before finally pausing in the far corner of the bedroom.

"That's easy, " Xander's voice came from the sleeping bag on the floor, "'My own dog – gone commercial!' The dash was a dead giveaway. Alright, since we kind of done 'Charley Brown Christmas' to death, I'm going to do one from 'the Great Pumpkin'"

"Here," Willow leaned over her bed and tossed him the flashlight, "This is even more fun than I thought it would be and I had high expectations"

"Really? I thought you just took pity on me because I got assigned Andrew as roommate"

"That, too," Willow smiled, "Plus Buffy is staying at Dawn's and it was weird being in the apartment all by myself"

"You could've bunked with Nikki"

"Oh, no! Same bedroom on the eve of the Apocalypse? That's way too much pressure for a budding relationship"

"You really like her, don't you?"

"Yeah," it was too dark to see clearly, but Willow's tone pretty much gave away the dreamy smile that floated on her face, "What did you think of her?"

"She seems nice. Smart. Nice looking, too," Xander paused for a moment, "So is she really gay or just kind of gay?"

"Xander!" A pillow flew off the bed straight into this face.

"I'm sorry, it's just not easy meeting someone in my situation"

"What are you talking about? You are practically mobbed by girls on daily basis"

"'Mobbed' is the right word. I can't tell you how many times I got, 'Oh, I didn't realize you were in the shower, but as long as we are both here would you mind washing my back?'"

"You poor baby," Willow scoffed

"It's not funny. They are kids. I don't care if fifteen is legal in Africa, I'm not going to be _that_ guy"

"Not all your slayer are that young"

"No, but pretty much everyone over sixteen is either married, pregnant, or divorced"

"Divorced?" Willow repeated taken aback.

"They are pretty macho over there. Well, it varies by ethnicity; some tribes are downright matriarchal, but a lot of guys just couldn't handle a woman who's stronger than them. Girls got dumped, some with kids. Pisses me off, but what are you going to do?"

"Provide companionship of someone happy to accept them for who they are?"

"They are vulnerable and on the rebound, I'm not going to be _that_ guy, either"

"Boy, it's hard being _this_ guy," Willow smirked from her bed

"Always has been," Xander deadpanned right back, "Maybe in a year or so. They'll grow older, more settled in their slaying lives. A healthy relationship may be in the cards. Funny thing," he started again after a brief silence, "The girls think I'm refusing to date any of them because I can't settle on a single girl, so they said in most of their cultures it's perfectly fine to have three or four girlfriends at the same time"

"But you are not going to be _that_ guy," Willow parroted, smiling.

"No, I'm going to be _that _guy. Just in a year or so,"

Willow's second pillow was deftly tossed at the offender's head as both erupted in laughter.

"We should have never split up," the witch's voice was suddenly somber, almost pained, "We should have stayed together, all of us. Bad things happen when we drift apart"

Xander sat up on his sleeping bag looking at Willow's dark silhouette also sitting upright on her bed.

"We are together now and we'll set everything right. We always do."

"No, we don't. There's always something that stays broken forever."

"You are talking about Dawn, aren't you? Buffy told me about the blow up the two of you had. I thought she was overreacting, but she wasn't. You are still not over it. What happened there?"

"Just leave it alone, Xander. This is my problem and I'll deal with it."

"This isn't about you, it's about Dawn. This is about helping her"

"You think I am not helping?"

"I've seen the way you look at her, Willow, and trust me, it's not helping!"

"And you and Buffy looking at her the same way will?"

"What are you talking about? Willow? I'm not dropping this. Willow, look at me!" she did and at once Xander fell silent. The witch's eyes were glowing a faint yellow color as she stared, unblinking at the face across.

"I'm sorry to have to do this to you, Xander," she spoke in a low, raspy voice, "But, Buffy cannot know what I know. Not yet. Not ever, if I can help it. I won't touch your memories, I don't need to. You see, you already trust me, Xander, more than anyone in the world. So every time doubt stirs in your mind you will remember that and realize you don't need to ask me anything. Xander?"

"What?" the young man answered, a little disoriented. The witch's eyes have grown dim.

"Tomorrow is the big day. We should turn in"

"Good idea," Xander yawned and climbed inside his sleeping bag, "Good night, Willow"

Both pillows floated off the floor back onto the bed. One drifted underneath the flowing red locks while the second landed on the girl's chest.

"Good night, Xander. I love you," she added in a barely audible whisper. She turned on her side, hugged the pillow with both hands, and closed her eyes.

...

Buffy stood inside the gym doorway for a few minutes letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. All exercise equipment has been moved flush against the walls to create a clearing for the fifty two sleeping bags. It's not that there wasn't enough space at the dorms. In fact, four of these slayers were to be housed in her and Dawn's suite, but Kennedy insisted the entire Rio contingent spend the night before the battle together as a bonding exercise. Buffy walked over to the sleeping brunette and nudged her lightly.

"You didn't come here to lie around, did you?"

The girl turned over, instantly alert.

"What do you need?"

"A driver and backup"

Kennedy sat up on her bag and whipped a long narrow blade out from under the pillow.

"I can start cars with it, too"

"That's okay, " Buffy smiled, "I have the keys"

Save for directions Buffy said nothing more the entire ride. It was the same through the lobby and into the elevator.

"I get why you didn't take one of your youngins instead," said Kennedy no longer able to handle the endless silence, "Don't want them to know you think our chances suck so bad you're asking Wolfram&Hart for help. Not that you care, but I'd do the same"

Buffy didn't answer. The ride was coming up on four minutes. Designed to blend into the low rise Roman skyline the building looked only twenty stories tall on the outside, but nothing of Wolfram&Hart was ever what it seemed on the outside.

"Willow thinks you and I are a lot alike," the Slayer said suddenly.

"Maybe," Kennedy shrugged, "But there is at least one important difference"

"What's that?"

"When I kick your ass in the next election and become Chairman I'll treat you with a lot more respect than you show me"

The girls looked at each and broke out in laughter just as the doors opened.

"Buffy, darling! I'm so glad!" Ilona, an attractive, curvy woman seemingly in her late thirties swept up the Slayer in a bear hug practically wedging the shorter girl's face into her decollete.

"Stop that! I told you not to hug me anymore!"

"Come, Buffy, you are Italian now! We hug, we kiss, we are full of love!"

"Right, love," she grumbled wiping lipstick off her cheeks, "That's what Wolfram&Hart is all about"

"You kid, but we love people. In our own way"

"Up the ass?" Kennedy smirked

"Don't be crude, darling," Ilona glared at the brunette as she lead the slayers into her office. Covered in Venetian Renaissance art and Persian rugs it looked as glamorous and opulent as its host. Ilona took a seat behind a large, intricately carved desk and with a wave of her hand invited her guests to situate themselves into the two matching chairs on the other side. Buffy reluctantly obliged, but Kennedy hoped onto the corner of the desk instead keeping both Ilona and the door in her field of vision.

"The First is trying to destroy the world again," the Slayer was in a hurry to get down to business.

"So I hear," Ilona smiled politely, "Why come to me?"

"Last time Los Angeles office sent me an amulet. It came in very handy. I thought you might have something I can use here"

"You don't need anything, darling! You do good work! Grazie! Very good work!"

"If the First succeeds in destroying the world it means the Senior Partners won't"

"We don't worry. You take care of everything. The First Evil, phtew, ciao! You win, It looses. You do great work, darling!"

"Yes, why help us?" Kennedy mumbled as if to herself, filing her nails with her dagger, "If we are going to win anyway you might as well make sure we suffer as many casualties as possible"

"You hurt me, darling," the older woman looked accusingly at the slayer, "I have nothing, but good wishes for you. I mean that. I have nothing. Just good wishes. I'm sorry"

"Very well, " Buffy said getting off her chair, "In that case I have something for you. Don't you hug me!" she snapped as Ilona moved towards her, "Just listen. I know Wolfram&Hart is chasing Angel all over the good old US of A. I've been taking it easy on your kind so far, but if something happens to him you will answer for it. And by 'you' I mean _you_. I will come here, I will burn this freak show to the the ground, and while there won't be any actual slaying, you being human and all, I will kick your butt so hard it'll merge with those fake boobs of yours!"

"Don't be rude, darling," the woman responded grimly, "You understand so little. For one, the boobs are neither fake nor mine"

"What does that even mean? No!" the Slayer's perplexed expression suddenly turned to horror, "Don't tell me! Don't you dare tell me!" She shuddered as Kennedy took her arm, but let herself be walked quickly out of the room.

"Do you think she meant..," she started as they approached the elevator.

"It's best not to think about it, Buffy"

Ilona watched the departing slayers in silence from behind her desk.

"An unpleasant little pair, aren't they, Pietro?" she spoke as soon as the elevator doors closed.

"Indeed, signora," came an answer from a waiflike man of indiscernible age who appeared seemingly out of thin air at her side, "But they do have a point. The First Evil's plans are certainly contrary to the Company's"

"Pietro, darling, what exactly do you know of the Apocalypse?"

"No one knows anything of the Apocalypse exactly, signora. There's even a rumor that there are several competing projects and no single Senior Partner knows them all"

"Then how do you know all of this isn't part of the plan? For months, Pietro, our beautiful city has been trampled upon by that loathsome Creature, those insufferable children, and that Russian maniac. Yet every time I inquire up on high as to the proper course of action I'm told not to interfere. Do you understand what it means?"

"It means you are correct, signora. We are witnessing an Apocalypse project unfolding"

"More to the point, darling. It means that should the Slayer return here seeking retribution, being that important to the Senior Partners, they'll just let those she-wolves have at us!" feeling her voice start to tremble , Ilona took a deep breath and proceeded more calmly, "Prepare a dossier for tomorrow emphasizing Angel's indispensability, darling. I'll need something to justify this office's very vocal 'nay' on the assassination"

"On what grounds should we object?"

"We think the short spiky haircut is going to take off"

"Scusi?"

"Make something up, you moron! I mean, darling"

"Right away, signora," Pietro bowed and left the room just as seamlessly as he appeared.

Ilona leaned back in her chair and covered her eyes with her palms when an abrupt ding of an incoming email snapped her back. She glanced over at her laptop. The subject line of the highlighted message read 'Request For Transfer'. The woman leaned in closer just as another ding pierced the speaker placing another identical message at the top of the queue, followed by another, then another, and another, until they fused together into a high pitched horn while the screen scrolled uncontrollably.

"Ratti maledetti!1" Ilona screeched and slammed the laptop shut.

Eight kilometers away Kennedy drove through the compound gates and parked at the building entrance. She was all the way up the stairs and to the door before realizing Buffy wasn't following.

"Are you alright?" she asked walking down a few steps.

"Be up in a bit," the Slayer responded.

Kennedy hesitated for a second, then skipped down the rest of the steps and got back into the driver seat.

"You know, suddenly I feel like cruising for a while, if that's okay with you?" She winked playfully at Buffy's smile and put the Citroen into drive. Making a ninety degree turn Kennedy winced at the low angled light and pulled down the shades. Another beautiful summer day was breaking.

1"Damn Rats!" (trans. Italian)


	15. Chapter 15: Dawn

**Chapter 15: Dawn**

It was a good thing he didn't need sleep because the sound of drills and hammers hasn't stopped for a minute in the past two days. The cave, already vast when Leshii arrived, has grown to twice the original size. With the square metrage of four city blocks it was lit up as bright as any downtown plaza. There were torches around some of the supporting columns, but most of the light came from giant pyres the Bringers would setup every time they expanded another section. This wasn't a deception for his benefit, the First was honestly getting ready to host the entire slayer army under this mountain. The Creature Itself, however, was nowhere to be seen. Leshii moved deeper into the recess of the cavern until the light from the work area became dim enough that he could only make out shapes and there was no mistaking the one now in front of him. There were others, too; all around. He could hear them rustling their chains in the darkness further on.

"Are you eating again?" a stern voice came from behind. The flame of the torch in the hand of a tall African cleric burst into the secluded area. The First winced and spit a half chewed limb from Its mouth.

"I'm a growing boy. And girl, I guess. I need my calories"

"They are not for you," the priest continued, angrily, "We brought the beasts here to stoke the power of the Void. In two days you have devoured almost a quarter. You must contain your hunger!"

The First looked around at the piles of demons surrounding It. Big and small, harmless and ferocious, all bound and gagged and piled on top of each other like firewood.

"But they look so scrumptious!" It whined playfully, "Don't get your robe in a bunch, Father," It chuckled at the cleric's expression, "I can control myself if need to"

The priest stared at the Creature for a second then gave Leshii a slight respectful nod, and walked off.

"I didn't want to encourage him, " the First spoke once the cleric disappeared around the corner, "But the man of the seriously out of fashion cloth does have a point. We should start the spell now, just to make certain we have enough demons left."

"We'll start when the slayers arrive"

"If we miscalculate the number of creature snacks necessary to ramp you up to human soul consumption level they will escape. Your powers will reach them eventually, but you'll be too dead to revel in it"

"I'm more concerned about miscalculating the time I'll last once I reach that level. We'll start when I see the slayers, no earlier"

"Amazing," the First smirked, "You still don't trust me, do you?"

"I trust motives. Ours intersect, not overlap. I believe you want the destruction, but it's unlikely you care about my revenge. Since I don't know why you want it I cannot trust you beyond that"

"I'm evil. Destroying the world is what we do"

"You are the First Evil, but you are oddly in hurry to be the last. Where will you get your kicks when I'm done? Total extinction is thrilling, but you don't strike as live for the moment type"

In the darkness Leshii couldn't make out Its face or even if Its fluid head had one at the moment. The First stayed silent for a while.

"Fair enough, " It began reluctantly, "I'm a bit ashamed to admit it, but my motive is the most banal of them all – survival"

"'Survival'? I wasn't aware anything could harm you."

"That would depend on your definition of 'harm'. Or, to be more precise, on your definition of 'me'," the Creature paused as It slowly sucked the blood off Its claws, one by one, "What makes you you? Your soul? Your genes, your experiences? What I lack in the former two I make up in the latter. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a schizo. I can tell which memories are mine and which are not, but they feel so similar. I cannot help, but get influenced by them. It is not unprecedented in your world. Humans, too, are shaped in part by what happens to people around them, the stories they hear, the books they read. The changes are minor, as they should be, but then comes science, medicine. In less than a century your population has tripled and lifespan has doubled. In just a few decades I will be forced to absorb more memories than I have in the last ten millennia. I'm frightened of what it would do to me. When a man looks back ten years and doesn't recognize himself, it means he matured. If he doesn't recognize the person he was yesterday it means he's gone insane. I can feel the change already. Just twenty years ago the very idea of this kind of sharing would make me vomit. Figuratively, of course"

"I take it then the Void interferes with the memory absorption process," Leshii mused, "One of those fascinating points McClure would have loved to cover. Still, you are defined by your actions, too. Will you be you if you can't kill and torture anyone?"

"This world won't be as empty as you think. There are quite a few of us natives. Your little girlfriend for one. What?" the First grinned gleefully at a subtle, but unmistakable sign of surprise on Leshii's face, "Didn't know she wasn't human? Looks like I'm finally one up on you"

"What is she?"

"That's a dozy. The honest answer is I'm not quite sure, but look forward to finding out. Now that I think about it, you don't have it much better than me, do you? Again and again your life is shaped by persons you really know nothing about"

"Do you?"

"...Know the man who tortured you?" the Creature turned almost giddy having successfully provoked another emotional response, "No. He must still be alive. The memories I have aren't terribly useful either. He always wore a mask, never spoke. He took two more children after you, but none in the last nine years. Perhaps he is in prison for another crime. It really doesn't matter. Whoever he is, wherever he is he will die by your hand; your revenge will be utter"

"You don't have to keep selling me. I know what I need to do. And when I need to do it. Now, for example, I need a smoke," Leshii pulled a pipe out of his shoulder bag and limped in the direction of a nook at the far wall, "If you plan on more snacks try not to splatter in my direction"

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

They were getting close; ten, maybe fifteen minutes away. Dawn kept glancing out one window or the other, trying to catch a glimpse of snow. She knew there shouldn't be any. It was almost August and they were barely ten thousand feet high, but for some reason she felt disappointed. There must be snow at the higher peaks, but the weather was poor and the clouds seemed to drift right above the helicopters.

The slayers were getting ready, checking their weapons and strapping on the armor. The landing zone was clear, but for all they knew the First's army could swarm out of the caves as soon as they touch down.

"Are those diamond earrings you're putting on?!"

"Why not?" Lili smiled awkwardly at Enise, "It's the end of the world. When else am I going to wear them? Besides, they are lucky. My great-grandma made it through the War wearing these"

"Didn't Carla loose them?" asked Daria, gently pulling the stones closer for a better look.

"I thought she did, but Samira went through her stuff again and found them. She's so awesome"

"No, she is not, it's a trick!" Kate's sudden outburst now pulled half the cabin into the conversation, "She's just trying to teach you some stupid lesson in her sneaky, two-faced way!"

"Taken a little too much liquid courage before the battle, have you Kate?" Samira pitch black eyebrow rose into a perfect arch over her right eye.

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about! I know you paid off my debts in secret and I know Carla did lose earrings dancing, so you probably bought them off whoever found them at God knows what price. Why don't you just admit it?"

"I'm sorry, but who are you again that I have to explain myself?"

"You don't have to explain anything. I know exactly why you did it," Kate's voice was breaking up now, her German accent becoming ever more pronounced, "You knew Dasha bought my spot on the team. It was supposed to be me in that casket, not her. So right after the funeral you paid every cent off to make sure no one you actually like gets killed again because I'm such a total loser!"

For a second Samira stared at the redhead's tear stained face in honest befuddlement.

"Someone does something nice for you and that's the first place you go to? You really are a total looser. Alright, alright," she put up her hands in surrender as the freckled German began hyperventilating, "I'll tell you for real, just don't stroke on me. Sheesh!" she watched as Enise took Kate by the shoulder and set her down next to herself. The other girls were similarly in attention which caused Samira to shift uncomfortably in her seat, "You were right, the timing wasn't a coincidence, but Dasha's and Oksana's funerals weren't the only ceremonies"

"That's right," Lili interrupted excitedly, "Sheelah's headstone was installed the same day. It was really beautiful"

"Yeah," Samira took a deep breath, "Gorgeous. White Jerusalem limestone, directly from her original grave. Went to a lot of trouble to get it. Thought it would make me feel better. Only when I stood in front of it I never felt worse in my entire life. So that's why. I don't want to stand in front of another slayer headstone and know I haven't done a single nice thing for her while she was alive"

"Oh...," Lili sighed wistfully, "That's so sweet!"

"Wait a second," Enise's eyes narrowed, "How come you are standing in front of our headstones? Maybe we'll be standing in front of yours"

"Really, Enise? Do you think someone with this hair and this skin is meant for a violent death?"

"Does getting tossed from a helicopter count?"

Dawn wasn't paying much attention to the squabbling on her left. Her eyes were fixed on Stefka at the far end of the cabin. It has taken all of her persuasive power to get Buffy to let her onto a first wave helicopter. They were almost at the target now and she still hasn't gotten up the courage to approach her friend. Stefka was in full armor already. The only thing missing was the helmet. Alice kept folding and rolling the waste long braid every which way, but the resultant straw blonde pile just refused to fit under the steel head gear. Finally, Dawn jumped off her seat and walked across the cabin to the pair. She lightly slapped Alice's hand away and grabbed the braid herself.

"It's just too thick," she said undoing the fastener, "We need to split it in two and roll them up on the sides, like princess Leia. Don't worry," she added quickly as Stefka's head jerked back, "The helmet is going to cover it up"

"It better," the slayer said quietly, "The last thing I want is Bringers pointing at me and laughing"

"And we are talking," Dawn smiled pulling the braid completely apart. Lacking a brush she strained the hair through her fingers to make sure no knots remained, "Are you still mad at me?"

"I never was. I just didn't have anything to say"

"So not angry, just given up. That's kind of worse"

"No," Stefka tried to turn, but Dawn's gentle push on the back of her head had her facing straight again, "I was avoiding you because I was afraid"

"Of me?"

"Of me," she fell quiet for a minute. It was on odd kind of silence. The noise of the wind and the engine, the chatter of slayers nearby all melted into a single white noise. As Dawn twisted the hair strands into a left braid it felt like nothing more than ringing in her ears from a completely silent cabin. "I did everything I could and still you went back to him," the slayer started up again, "I failed, again. Now, when I see you, I get the feeling that it will always be this way, that I'm destined to save countless strangers, but not a single person I care about"

"Wow. Ease up on the pathos there, sister," Dawn forced out a chuckle, "It's the apocalypse talking. Life will seem a lot more ordinary in the morning. I know, I've been through a dozen of these"

"And I've been through a dozen goodbyes to recognize one when I hear it. So which one of us do you think isn't coming back?"

"You are overdramatizing again. I'll be all the way in the back with Willow; there won't a Bringer within a mile. You've got it tougher sure, but you've also got an extra shadow there to keep you safe," Dawn nodded in the direction of Alice who was working silently on the other braid. The girl was keeping her head down, doing her best to give the two friends the illusion of privacy they needed.

"I suppose," Stefka signed, "But if the First turns into the Queen of England I'm so screwed"

The braid dropped out of Alice's hand as did her jaw. All conversations in the cabin stopped, the girls' faces turning wild-eyed to the blonde slayer.

"What?" Stefka calmly looked over her team, "Too soon?"

Samira's laughter finally broke over the noise of the rotor.

"A totally inappropriate joke from Stefka," the Persian chuckled, "The end of the world is so nigh!"

"You want inappropriate?" the blue eyes twinkled on the still stone face, "I've got a nice limerick about a horse for you"

"Team Two, look sharp!" Buffy voice broke over the intercom. In an instant the slayers were back at their stations, buckling cables into their harnesses. Stefka buckled the strap on her helmet and catapulted herself off the seat right into the middle of the cabin.

"Gear on! We are off in ninety! You," she pointed her finger at Dawn, "Don't move a centimeter off that seat!"

The helicopter careened on approach and Dawn could finally see the landing site. There was one chopper below them. It buzzed the rocky flat and took off without landing. For a few seconds Team One hovered a meter off the surface; the witches scanning for mines and other surprises. Dawn was now close enough to make out the individual figures. The Russians, divvied up between Yozh and Xander were securing the high points with light and medium machine guns. Buffy, Helga, and four other witches from her Sarpsborg coven provided cover for anything the bullets couldn't handle.

"In ten!" Stefka shouted over the noise of the rotor. Their helicopter wasn't landing either, but it got close enough for the slayers to slide down the ten meter cables. Almost empty now, the machine pivoted hard to the right and sprung upwards. Team Three, led by Kennedy, was disembarking in a similar fashion below. With the first wave fully in place Buffy moved quickly to expand the security perimeter in anticipation of the convoy. Dawn could see it fully now for the first time. Thoroughly spoiled by growing up in a city on top of a Hellmouth it has been years since a sight of anything would take her breath away. Flanked by mountains and thinning clouds six strike helicopters and five heavy gunships were escorting four transports. Spread unevenly among the fifteen metal birds were almost three hundred slayers. How sad the Flight of the Valkyries has long become a parody of itself. There was never a more appropriate scene.

Dawn's helicopter kept rising, circling above the convoy then descending into the tail end.

"All hands, prepare to disembark," Giles' voice grated over the speaker. Whatever the First's plan was it did not include an ambush at the landing site. The battle was still ahead.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

The first thing Buffy did when she opened her eyes was look at her hands. They were still there as were her feet. She squeezed her fists a few times then jumped up and down. This was really weird. As in it wasn't weird at all. She felt exactly the same.

"What are you doing?" Kennedy's look seem to mirror Willow's words exactly.

"What does it look like? I'm trying to float, but I can't even jump higher than usual. How's that possible? Astral projections don't have mass"

"They don't have muscles, either. It's all in your head"

"Just keep telling yourself, 'I believe I can fly!'" Kennedy chuckled. The girl clearly wasn't a stranger to this spell as she buzzed by Buffy mockingly flapping her arms.

"Or I can just walk," said the Slayer and headed straight for the Bringer encampment.

Four hundred feet from the mouth of the cave to the Bringer line. Another sixty to the altar. Save for a few pyres and load bearing beams all obstacles have been removed. The cave was transformed into a completely open battlefield. Almost open. The experienced eye of the Slayer caught the upward sloping angle of the rocky ground sloped on the east side. A rapid advance across the entire width of the cavern would be unsustainable, breakup the line at the flanks. Good to know. As she got closer to the altar the Bringer groups were getting too thick to walk around so she simply phased right through them. The shrine area had a completely different feel to it. Perhaps the First was not expecting to launch any attacks from this section or perhaps the zealotry of the Necromancers dictated it be so, but the giant stone pyres that lit the cave were much closer together forming multiple narrow passages that fed into the main area. The altar was lousy with clerics. The Bringers handled the excavation of the cave, but chiseling magic runes was the job for the sorcerers. Moving past the cabal she walked a dimly lit passage until a hulking mass blocked her way.

"Don't even think about it!"

Buffy practically jumped where she stood.

"You were going to poke It, weren't you?" Willow continued sternly not bothering to give her any time to protest, "I know you were going to poke It! What is it with you and poking things?"

"What's the big deal? I'm a projection, It doesn't know I'm here"

"It's an uber powerful spell caster. You start poking It, it won't matter how astral you are!"

"Okay, okay, I was just curious. Is it me or is It bigger now? Like twice as big, at least"

"It's not you," Willow sighed, "The Creature is a counter balance to the slayers. Since their powers grow with age it makes sense this Thing grows, too"

"Great. Did you see the menagerie behind It? Do we have to fight them, too? I thought Necromancers hated demons"

"I think they are meant as fuel the Void. Which, if true, will bring the window for my spell down to a few minutes, if not seconds"

"Okay," Buffy answered trying to mask her frustration with a smile, "Bad news first, now some good news, please"

"Well," Willow paused for a second, "One of the Necromancers is a rabbi"

"How's that good?"

"I applaud tolerance and inclusion wherever I find it, I make no apologies"

"The number of Bringers is at the low end of expectations. That's good," said Kennedy as she walked up to the pair, "I counted a little over ten thousand. Twenty two Necromancers"

"'Ten thousand'," Buffy nodded approvingly, "That's about thirty to one and down from there. Not bad"

"It's not my thirty to one I'm concerned about, it's your six hundred to one," Kennedy responded grimly

"Actually mine is one to one," the Slayer smirked, "But then it's not about me. Worried I'll get your girlfriend killed?"

"Six hundred to one, Buffy. Don't pretend you don't expect casualties. Somebody's going to die there and it was my evaluation that put Linda on your suicide squad"

"Don't call them that!" Willow burst in on the argument

"I don't expect casualties, Kennedy," Buffy's voice was cold and even, "I picked each slayer precisely because she can handle it. Did you pad Linda's review because you are sleeping with her?"

"No!"

"Then you have nothing to feel guilty about"

"I'm not feeling guilty. I'm worried"

"Then tell her that," Willow gave Kennedy's hand a gentle squeeze, "Tell her to come back to you. Let her know you care one more time. It's never enough, trust me"

"I think it's time to go," said Buffy. Willow nodded taking hold of both slayers' hands. In an instant the cave phased back to camp. Their once tall orange fire has turned to embers, yellowish from the spell.

"One last thing before you go, Kennedy," Buffy said brushing the ashes off her jeans, "The cave floor on the right side.."

"Slopes up. I saw it," the slayer interrupted with a smile

"Good. In that case, congratulations. From here on the army is all yours. Are you ready?"

"Yes. What?" Kennedy grinned at Buffy's expression, "Did you expect me to say 'No'?"

"No, I expected a self assured quip of some kind. Not 'born ready', but something to that effect"

"Good, I'd hate to leave you without anything about my performance to nitpick," the girl smiled, bumped the fist extended to her and walked off in the direction of the main camp.

"She's got quite a personality that one," Buffy chuckled

"She'll do great," Willow responded

"I know. I wouldn't have picked her otherwise. Speaking of picks, I need to be with my team"

"All done," Dawn announced before Buffy could call for her, "Here," she handed over a sack, "The gel is individually packaged; one per serving. Stefka's is the big jar; labeled just in case"

"Aren't you a good little helper today," the Slayer smirked playfully at her sister

"I can take directions if asked nicely"

"Are you saying I'm not nice?"

"Not Willow-nice"

"Nobody is Willow-nice"

"Stop it, you two," the witch interrupted them with mock sternness, "My face is getting to be the color of my hair. It's not a good look"

Buffy chuckled, but grew serious in a second.

"I'm not going to wish you luck because you won't need that spell. I'll see you both nice and conscious in a few hours. Just keep each other out of trouble," she turned and hurried away least her perfectly short farewell turned awkward, or worse, profound. The offhanded 'see ya's directed at her back at once resurrected the smile. The three of them have been through enough of these to know what each expected of the others.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

As soon as her sister walked away Dawn returned to her work area by the fire. She counted out the eye of newt into seven piles of thirteen, then proceeded to peel the chestnuts. She always had an affinity for magic, though not the talent. Dawn approached spells as Chemistry experiments and her superb analytical skills allowed her fair proficiency. Today, however, she happily accepted the menial labor of preparing basic ingredients. It has been a while since she has spent her time on something that didn't require the use of her brain. It was positively serene.

"There you are. Never thought I'd see the day"

Dawn looked up to see Yozh's bowling ball of a head and squinted quizzically.

"I'm no Zemfira, but I did plenty of spells for Leshii"

"It's not your voodoo that I question, girl, it's your attitude. When I heard you are taking a back seat in something this big I could not believe it. Tell me you've got a plan"

"The plan is to help Willow. The spell is just as important as anything else and I'll be making sure it goes they way it needs to," Dawn answered unsure what to make of Yozh's remark, "What's up?"

"Nothing," Yozh mumbled

"No, it's something. Let's have it out"

Yozh glanced over at Willow, but the look on the witch's face told him she wasn't going anywhere.

"It's just," he hesitated for a second, then smirked, "I'm on the other side of Leshii this time around and there was only one person who's faced the crazy and kept it even. I'd feel much better with that mad genius of my own calling the shots"

"Why, Yozh," Dawn couldn't help smiling, "I didn't think you liked me"

"I never said I didn't like you. I said you were crazy"

"Thanks, " the girl chuckled, "I could say I'm too injured to be on the front lines, but, honestly, this is the kind of thing Slayers do best anyway, and your team is in good hands with Xander"

"Oh, yeah? And what makes him so damn qualified?"

"Well, he dressed up as a soldier for Halloween once," the girl replied with a smile

"Yeah," the fat man cackled, "That's what I figured!"

As soon as Yozh was out of ear shot Dawn looked over at Willow and chuckled herself

"I love it when they think they are in on the joke when they are so not. Willow? Are you okay?"

The witch appeared lost in thought. Hearing her name the second time she looked up at the girl appearing now more disturbed than pensive.

"What did you wear? That night, what was your costume?"

"Wednesday Adams"

"I can't remember," the redhead mumbled, "I'm trying to, but I can't even picture it"

"I'm not surprised. I was the only one not freaking out. It was the perfect costume – all that demon mayhem seemed perfectly normal, " she smiled, "Now Princess Buffy is etched permanently in all our memories"

"I don't remember," Willow just repeated, shaking her head, "This is not right"

"I forgive you," Dawn chuckled, "Take it easy"

The witch stared at the girl for a second before a forced smile stretched out her pale cheeks.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what that was all about. Must be the stress of the spell getting to me. Are you done with the newt? Hold on a second," the redhead rummaged for almost a minute through her bottomless bag of implements and ingredients before fishing out two tiny glass vessels, "Here, I need two ampullae of blood"

"I don't remember the spell needing blood"

"There are variations; I want to be ready" the witch replied looking away as she did. Dawn shrugged and carefully inserted the needle into her arm. If Willow says she needs her blood then she needs her blood.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

Buffy paused for a moment, looking over the girls from a distance as they crowded around a small fire. With the exception of Kennedy and Rhonda these were the best fifteen slayers from every corner of the world. Some of them were almost family, a few she only met once. She memorized the names already, but she needed to bind each one to the face. Not the photograph, but the actual face, chattering or silent, smiling or serious. She picked them. Each one of them, out of hundreds of others. There are backup plans for those others, escape routes. Not for the fifteen. If things don't go right they will all die. They will die because that's how she chose it.

"Here," Buffy dropped the sack she was carrying on the ground and started tossing out the contents, "Use all of the gel in the pack; spread it evenly"

"What is this?" Samira grimaced as she squeezed out green slime.

"Invisibility spell," the Slayer answered.

"What invisibility?" Linda glanced over the rest of her comrades that started tentatively rubbing on the lotion, "The Bringers have no eyes"

"Think about," Samira scoffed.

"Here," Buffy handed a much bigger jar to Stefka, "Willow mixed this one special. You'll need to really slather this over yourself"

"That's not very nice," Lily looked accusingly at the Slayer, "It was a very cramped ride; in full gear, too. Nobody here is exactly smelling like a bed of roses"

"I need extra because I am magic resistant"

"Oh, " the girl chuckled happy her cheeks were already red from the cold, "I didn't mean you... I mean...it's probably me. Yes, it's definitely all me"

"Now pay attention, everyone" Buffy's voice seem to barely carry over the wind, but the eyes of the fifteen slayers were at once upon her. "The chaos of the attack and the gel should let us get by undetected, but things rarely go that smoothly. If you are uncovered while still amongst the Bringers, don't get carried away with the killing; defend and make your way to the shrine as quickly as you can. Once we are through I have to fight the First. Since It's never been one for fair fighting I expect the Bringer army to be turned around. You job is to keep them off me until it's over. Now I'd love to say 'until I kill it', but I can't. If something happens to me, whoever is closest gets the Scythe, whoever it is. This is not some big honor. The hero is not the one holding this," she lifted the weapon over her head the lowered it, slowly traversing the circumference of the slayer circle, "She is the one holding the line against ten thousand Bringers. Six hundred to one are some very lousy odds so I won't have anyone making it worse for the others by getting herself killed. Nobody dies out there today, you hear me? Nobody" They were still looking at her. The speech was over; had a good ending, too. Why are they still looking at her? Do they feel it, too? Do they want her to remember their faces? "We are moving out," she said noticing Kennedy arranging her troops, "Spread yourself among the ranks and wait for the signal. I'll see you all at the altar"

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

There wasn't any resistance at the mouth of the cavern, either. No explosives, no traps. The area near the entrance was well lit and practically paved. The slayers were being welcomed on stage for Leshii's benefit. This was no time for trickery; the First had an unbeatable hand so It was laying all Its cards on the table. The Harbinger army lined up the width of the cave, dozens of bodies deep. The altar was hidden by the zombie wall, but the Creature's giant shape towering in the distance was a clear beacon.

"Here we go!" Willow tossed a small shiny circle up the rock face. It wedged high in between the stones. A dozen of silver trickles oozed down, merged and crisscrossed, finally freezing into an angled, mirrored shape.

"That's a sneaky way to get around the line of sight requirement," Dawn quipped, impressed by the simplicity of the solution.

"Reflected line of sight is still line of sight; the light is original," the witch stated authoritatively as she set up her workspace, "Now camera would be a copy so it wouldn't work"

Ahead of them Kennedy was putting the final touches on the slayer formation, moving them closer to the Bringer line as she did, but still failing to provoke any reaction.

"They will not attack," she heard Giles' voice in her ear bud, "Their only purpose is to hold us off until the First puts together Its ultimate weapon"

"They'll attack," the girl answered smugly, "They just need a little incentive. Xander – guns! Helga, back them up!"

The right flank parted letting Yozh and his gang to the front. The baritones of four machine guns joined by the chorus of a dozen assault rifles tore at Dawn's eardrums. She almost dropped the tray of newt eyes as the visions of shards of broken glass and bloodied walls of the conference room burst into her mind. Our guns; these are our guns now.

There was a force field protecting the Harbingers, but the superior numbers on the witches' side negated the Necromancers' home advantage. Evenly matched, the kinetic energy broke the tie and the Bringer vanguard was quickly and surely torn apart by large caliber bullets. Realizing the rate of loss was not sustainable the clerics sent their hordes charging.

"Pull back ranged weapons! Close ranks!" Xander shouted out orders. Full length steel crowd control shields clanked together into a barrier behind the Russians , "Yozh, re-arm and re-enforce the second regiment! Awa," he addressed the tall Ivorian with short bleached hair that was shadowing him from the second they landed, "Go, make sure they follow directions"

"Comme vous le commande, mongénéral," the slayer nodded and squeezed after the gangsters into the rear.

Once they clear behind the lines, the guns were pushed quickly against the wall and Yozh tossed out shotgun ammo belts from the wheelbarrow nearby like Halloween candy.

"What, the hell, are you doing?" he called out to Braids who was stuffing his jacket full of AK-47 clips instead, "It's short range weapons only"

"Fuck that shit!" the gangster responded grimly, tossing back his long grayish hair as he checked and re-checked the bolt, "Do they think we are idiots? This whole flank is fucking cannon fodder. We are getting overrun here, people, that's the plan, that's why he wants us up there with the second. It won't hold, not against those numbers. So fuck that! We take high ground and let the dumb bitches hold back the full frontal while we thin out the back. Get those numbers down or we get run over. No other way"

"Can't do that, man. Their queen B is going to be out there with her posse. You start spraying lead every which way someone important is going to get killed"

"Not as important as me"

Yozh had a decent comeback ready, but said nothing, rightly reasoning the person that just appeared behind Braids would phrase it better. In one, fraction of a second, motion Awa wrapped his long oily mop around her hand and smashed his head against the wall. Before the gangster could even cry out in pain, a sharp machete blade was pressed into his face, slicing ever so shallow into his cheek.

"You got simple order," the slayer spoke in broken English, "I got simple order, too. I see hands holding AKs – I cut hands off"

Braids was no spring chicken. Over the last eighteen years he has spent almost as much time with a gun in his face as in his hands, but the cold emptiness in the eyes of the former child soldier has eviscerated any sound in his throat.

"I thought slayers don't kill people," said Rooster and immediately cursed himself for butting in

"You don't die" the slayer barred her teeth in a devilish grin, "Trust me, I know," she turned her face back to her prisoner and hissed malevolently, "Handsss..." Realizing he was still holding the rifle, Bones finally gained the presence of mind to unclasp his fingers. "Now," Awa spoke letting him drop on top of his weapon, "Fight that way"

Actually fighting was every way now. The slayers were engaged across the entire breadth of their line, though the brunt of the attack was clearly born by Xander's troops. Whipped into a frenzy by the close physical proximity of their masters the Bringers literally threw themselves into battle. It wasn't even their daggers that were doing the greatest damage, the hands were. Climbing all over their own, both beheaded and still moving, they would reach over the shielded line to stab, claw, and pull at the slayers. Jammed so close together whatever few individual distinction they had dissolved into some bizarre infinitely-limbed monster. Short swords and broad blade spears swung to and fro trying desperately to thin out this mass of tentacles, but every once in a while a girl would get pulled out from behind the shields and swallowed up by the flowing robed mass. Sometimes it would go the other directions and instead of pulling in, the crest of a Bringer attack would fall on top of the slayers, trying to plant troops behind the defenses. Near the second regiment position that flesh tsunami grew so large that a section of the line collapsed under the weight of the flung bodies. A simultaneous ten shotgun blast stopped the advancing horde for half a second, just enough time for Awa to grab a hand sticking out from underneath the pile. The slayer's arm was snapped out of its socket by the powerful tug, but she was free. There was no time to get the others; the enemy has moved in and the fight resumed on top of the bodies, friend and foe.

"What are you waiting for, Xander?" Dawn mumbled to herself watching the carnage unfold on the silver mirror, "Make it look good, don't make it real!" As if it to answer her two sharp whistles pierced the roar of battle. Retreat. The shield bearers started moving backwards in an orderly fashion, but not for long. The pace was uneven and the line was quickly developing cracks. The Harbingers pounced onto weak spots swiftly obliterating the last semblance of a formation and sending the slayers into the full on flight. Troops from Kennedy's center regiments rushed to reinforce. The battle lines on the right flank have quickly become non-existent. Slayers and Bringers were all around each other waging dozens of one- or two – on-many battles. With so many bodies going every which way it was easy not to notice a slayer here or there who instead of hacking feverishly back toward the bulk of her troops like the rest, would instead slip deeper and deeper into the depths of the onward rushing Harbingers.

"And they are off," Dawn said somewhat louder now, this time meaning for Willow to hear. She didn't actually see Buffy among the seemingly endless mass of robes, but she was well versed in the details of the battle plan and so far everything was going according to script.

"She won't make it in time," the witch responded grimly looking up at her mirror, "The ceremony must almost be complete – they are bringing in the demon snacks. I guess we are up," she sat cross legged on the mat in front of the laid out ingredients, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath in preparation for the spell.

"Honestly, Willow, how sure are you this will work?"

"I'm pretty sure it won't work if you keep interrupting me," the redhead answered still keeping her eyes closed

"That's what I figured. I'm sorry," the butt of the gun landed hard on the back of the head, knocking Willow to the ground, unconscious. Dawn felt for the pulse on her neck, just in case, then smashed the clay pottery, spilling the ingredients all over the rocky floor. A quick glance to check if anyone saw her and the girl took off for the unlit section of the cavern.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

It was a lot brighter than she thought it would be. The polished stone of the underground passageways reflected the flashlights in their hands. The walls were probably tiled this way from the temple entrance, but it wasn't until they got deep enough for dense jungle roots to be replaced by translucent cob webs that she noticed the effect. There was something so metaphorical about. How long is this path she has been traveling? Years, decades even. Her part has only started in earnest seven months ago, but those days seem so far away now. Struggling in the darkness, feeling her way through. Everything is so much clearer now. She is almost at an end; a happy end. There could be no other. She could feel it, with every new step, every new breath.

"Are you alright?" Leshii asked noticing Dawn no longer walking behind him. The girl was standing still, smiling with her eyes closed.

"Don't you feel it? It's like an ocean breeze or end of a thunderstorm, only more so. I never felt air this pure"

"Feels as stale as any underground air to me"

"It would, wouldn't it?" Dawn opened her eyes and made a three sixty, taking another long, deep breath, "No evil set foot here for ten thousand years. Actually, if Willow is right about how the spell works, nothing evil has ever been here. Probably the only such place on Earth"

"We must be within the protection barrier," said Leshii, sweeping the wall with his flashlight for any inscriptions.

"Yes, which means you can finally tell me why we are really here. Come on," she smiled as he stared her down, "You didn't actually expect me buy that story, did you?"

"If you thought I was lying why did you come?"

"It's simple, for anyone capable of understanding it," Dawn took a few steps towards Leshii, the beams of their flashlights mixed together, giving her face an odd glow, "It never mattered what she said. It never mattered what she did. She could never betray you because you have no such concept. She could come behind you and slit your throat and you would still love her till the last drop of blood. Not that she would care even if she knew. She will never forgive you for what you have done. She will go on hating you for the rest of her life. For the rest of her much longer and much safer life thanks to you. And that's enough. The First doesn't get it. All It has of love are memories and that's a weakness, not a strength. Countless broken promises; devotion turning to hate and obsession, and, too often, indifference. As for the few that did hold steadfast, they must not have been pressed hard enough. I know better. Anyone who really loves believes it can last forever, overcome any obstacles, stand up to any pain. Perhaps, like billions before me, I, too, will eventually break and disappoint, but right now I love and I believe. I believe you are capable of anything for your sister because I will do anything for mine. All the First has are facts. It cannot love so It simply cannot imagine someone like you could exist. Its near infinite knowledge and intelligence are useless because It understands nothing about the most important thing in the Universe. That's why It will loose. That's why we will win" Perhaps it was simply a play of shadows, but for a second Dawn thought she saw Leshii smile, "Now let's go get that dagger," she smiled back, "And you can tell me what we really are supposed to do with it on the way"

They continued on. An on and on. The corridors seemed endless, but from the curvature of the walls Dawn could tell they were traversing a spiral. The shape became more and more pronounced until they finally emerged into a large center chamber. Leshii pulled three flares from his backpack and tossed one in each direction.

"Looks empty"

"There's probably a secret entrance around here somewhere," Dawn responded, walking ahead, "Let's check the graffiti," she strolled deeper inside, until the glow of the leftmost flare faded into the darkness. She stopped and swept her flashlight in the direction of the wall. Every inch of the polished stone, from the floor to the ceiling four meters above, was covered with small, intricate inscriptions, "This will take a while," the girl sighed. She pulled a cigarette from the pack in her back pocket, then fished out a lighter from her front one. As the spark of the stone ignited the butane the entire chamber seemed to burst into flames. The fire instantaneously receded into three evenly spaced grooves spanning the circumference of the room. Dawn slowly turned to Leshii, the still unlit cigarette hanging off the lower lip of her agape mouth.

"At least we know we have the right temple," she smirked and sucked the filter back in.

For over an hour Leshii sat silently on the stone floor watching Dawn move steadily along the southeast section of the wall. Every once in a while she would stroll over to the northeast or southwest sectors, but always quickly returning to the original choice.

"Anything?"

"Lot's of things," she replied without taking her eyes off the inscriptions, "This fire archmage constructed the entire temple all by himself, which explains those beautifully reflective walls in the tunnels. The rocks weren't polished, they were melted. Volcanic glass. This writing, too, is singed into the stone, not carved"

"Anything on the dagger?"

"It's chronological. He starts with the Demon wars, goes on to the Void and all the subsequent hilarity, then to the construction of the temples. The how-to on dagger retrieval should be the next panel"

"You couldn't skip straight to it?"

"This is fascinating stuff! Well written, too. A few too many adjectives for my taste, but I guess that's how the fire magi spoke. The panels in the other sectors have the same story, but in different dialects. Apparently the four orders interacted so little with one another their languages started to diverge. Fine," she sighed at the very cool reception of her enthusiasm, "I'll get to it. I've forgotten what a buzz kill you are," she mumbled.

It took only ten minutes or however long it takes for a half smoked cigarette to whither to a stub. Dawn spat it to the ground, but unlike the eleven previous times no replacement took its place. She looked back to Leshii as if to say something, but only smiled and turned back to the wall.

"Get over here," she said at last, peeling back her right glove, "You may need to put me out"

"What do you mean?" the cripple responded perplexed, limping over nevertheless.

The answer came as the girl thrust her hand into the fire . The flames leapt several feet into the air then retreated into the groove. Slowly Dawn pulled her hand back as her breathing returned to normal as well.

"I guess I passed," she said wiggling her surviving fingers. The pinky prosthetic has melted away, along with the screw that held it to her hamate bone, but not a millimeter of the skin was singed.

"Do you see it then?"

"I see him"

"The archmage encased himself into the wall, too" Leshii spoke thoughtfully, "Makes sense. The spell was for immortality, not invincibility. Left in the open the insects would have eaten him alive"

"Thanks for the imagery," Dawn winced, "And there's the dagger, by his left side," she added and reached into her other back pocket.

"A little early in the day for celebrating, don't you think?" said Leshii as the girl unscrewed the flask

"First of all, it's never too early," she smirked and took a deliberately large swig, "And second, it's not for me," with that she poured the rest of the cognac over her hand and forearm, "The guy has been stuck inside a rock for ten thousand years. I'm not about to kill him with my modern age cooties" The girl reached into the stone wall and emerged holding an ivory handle with a protruding blood red crystal.

"I'm a little disappointed," Dawn spoke turning the dagger over in her hand, "This is the miracle weapon? They've got bigger steak knives at Sizzler"

"It isn't meant for battle. It's an assassination weapon designed to be easily concealed"

"Let's conceal it and go then"

"Not yet. There's an evisceration spell the First wanted you to use. We need to perform it"

"I'm confused," Dawn stared at the Russian with precisely that expression

"We are not going to destroy it, obviously, but spells often leave residue behind, an odor or powder. If the First doesn't detect it on us It may become suspicious"

"Thorough," Dawn nodded, "Alright, I'll cook you sow," she said extending the handle to Leshii.

"'Sow'?"

"'Cannot be seen with eyes unclean'," she lightly tapped the end of the blade, "works great on the First; not so much on the guys at the x-ray machines at the airport. Since the dagger is all bone and stone I figure we sow it into the lining of my jacket and I'll walk it through the metal detector"

It took Dawn an ironically long time to setup a fire in this temple supposedly dedicated to the subject area. The cross breeze from the hidden air ducts kept putting out her lighter while the flames in the wall grooves would not take to any other material, just instantly sublimating it on contact. Still, persistence pays off and the girl was eventually chanting cheerfully over the magical brew.

"Hey," she called out, dispelling the steam over the tiny cauldron with her palm, "Not seeing a lot of sowing happening. It's twenty first century, mister, we share our chores"

"It's too risky," Leshii responded setting the jacket aside, "They might still take it through the x-ray or it might get stolen, and who knows what else. Better hide the dagger on your person"

The hand paused in midair as the girl stared back wide eyed

"If you are implying some kind of cavity-based storage, it's not happening!"

"No, the blade is too long, it may damage you. I was thinking of strapping it to your torso. A rib injury would cancel it nicely. The dagger could be part of the splint"

"A fake injury, " Dawn reiterated almost excited, "That could actually be fun" Only the look in the Leshii's eye wiped the smile right off, "Oh, come on!"

"The First will be watching you. Your reactions must be authentic in every situation"

"I hate you so much," the girl grumbled, shaking her head.

"Take your clothes off and lie down," he said, walking over.

Dawn obediently removed her jacket and sweater leaving her with just a bra on. She spread them on the stone floor and lay on top.

"Put your arms up," said Leshii kneeling over the girl. He took off the glove from his left hand and placed his palm to her lips, "Bite down, if you like; this will hurt," he said looking into the girl's eyes as his fist plowed into her side. Dawn's teeth clasped around the hand in her mouth, then let in a gasp as she struggled for air.

"Shallow breaths," Leshii said quietly and calmly, "It's only a bruise, light fracture at most. The pain will dull soon" He stood up and grabbed a portable aid from Dawn's backpack. Taping the dagger in place he proceeded to carefully, almost tenderly to wrap the girl's torso. She didn't speak a word throughout, just lifted herself a few inches every time she felt his strong hand nudge her from underneath, "Try to sit up," said Leshii pulling gently on her shoulders. Dawn did as she was told and Leshii guided her arms into the blouse sleeves one by one. Her breathing was returning to normal and she slowly buttoned up. "Is the spell completed?" Dawn nodded in response. "Good, then we are set"

"Right," the girl smirked, "We are all set. Except 'we' is actually three people and third person in our plan doesn't even know she is in on it"

"I don't doubt your sister will find a way to defeat the Creature. I know of no greater warrior"

"You beat her"

"I cheated"

"True," Dawn smiled, "The whole cane thing was pretty unsavory"

"I put my sister's life on the line, but guaranteed your safety. We were fighting for very different things, and still I almost lost. Your sister will be fighting to save the world now. Your world. She will be fighting for you and that will make her the one truly invincible"

Dawn grabbed his elbow and Leshii helped her to her feet. She waited in place as the cripple limped to and fro their mini camp site, putting out the fire and packing up the bags. Almost set.

"I don't know if it means anything to you," she said suddenly, "But I wish you didn't have to die"

Leshii paused mid buckling and stared at the girl.

"Of all the people who died to make this happen, of all who are yet to die, surely I deserve to the most"

"God will judge you, Alesha, I won't dare"

"I see"

"You 'see'?" she scoffed at the underwhelming response.

Leshii hoisted his bag onto his back then threw Dawn's over his left shoulder.

"I believe I know what you are planning; your next project," he said as he limped by towards the exit, "I think you are making a mistake" Leshii stopped and waited for the girl to catch up. The lanterns encircling the chamber were going out behind Dawn as if leading her out. Just two small fires on each side remained when she stopped barely a foot in front of him.

"You don't think I'm good enough?"

"That's not how I would put it," he walked on just a few steps before stopping again, "Unfortunately I don't have enough time left to change your mind. The best I can do is make sure you have enough to change it yourself. It involves memorizing a lot of numbers..."

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

"...And that's the last of it. Do you feel ready?"

The Creature's voice seemed to come from somewhere very far away. Leshii tried hard to focus on his surroundings. The monotonous roar fanning out from behind him sharpened into the sounds of battle. The yellow and black haze condensed into hundreds of demon corpses piled around the stone pyres.

"I'm not sure how I feel. It feels..."

"Don't describe it," the First interrupted impatiently, "Just try to take a soul!"

Leshii turned to face the altar. The seven Necromancers that aided the Creature in Its spell were still there, staring at him, the culmination of so many centuries of toil. He raised his hand towards the closest figure, a short, balding monk with gray sideburns. The man gasped, straining for a few seconds against a force that seemed to be pulling at him from the inside; then collapsed to his knees. He sat there unmoving save for the slight, even heaving of his chest; his vacant eyes fixed to the rocky ground beneath him. As his first human victim was silenced Leshii pointed his hand at the others. None moved to flee. They watched the passing of their faithful in silent awe, knowing that their turn will come soon, and smiles that edged their faces, some for the first time in years, persisted as their empty bodies receded to the floor of the cave.

"You are right, I suppose," said First looking over the freshly created zombies, "With their magic inert, they are only useful as guinea pigs. Let's move on, though. Realize, that the Void is not a gun. You don't aim it by seeing. As long as you target is within range all you need is to think of it," the Creature grinned and made a sweeping gesture towards the battlefield. The front line was a bloody blur. The slayers' retreated in a still orderly, but accelerating pace as the Bringers were driven forth by their masters with ever increasing zeal. Strategy no longer mattered to them. The Wielder has been unleashed and there was nothing left to do, but end their lives in the most destructive manner possible. Leshii took a few steps in the direction of the carnage and closed his eyes. Somewhere out there, in the midst of the fighting, the remaining Necromancers collapsed, and were trampled by their berserk minions.

"Okay, " the First spoke somewhat confused, "You are thorough; that's rarely a bad thing. Now for the fun stuff!" It stared out into the field, almost salivating, but the seconds kept on ticking, "Well?" It turned only to find the Russian sitting on a rock, doodling on the ground with his cane, "What are you waiting for?!"

"It's her turn now. I have to wait till she's done"

The First turned in the direction of his head nod to see the rear lines of the Bringer army burst open revealing the Slayer and her guard. The Creature's long neck swung from Buffy to Leshii, back to Buffy, then Leshii again, re-calculating, re-examining every word, every step until the bafflement on Its face gave way to ravenous hate.

"You treacherous, little..." It seethed, sweeping the man into Its paws, futilely trying to pull apart the unyielding joints, "I...don't have to threaten you," It hissed finally getting some measure of control, "You'll barely last an hour. Just long enough to see me get your precious sister!"

"I'll last long enough to see you never do," was the calm reply.

The First roared, tossing him into wall with enough force to splatter a human body, but the indestructible flesh of the Wielder smashed through the stone, burying Leshii under the rubble.

"What's the matter? Can't get your toy to work? I hope you kept the receipt"

With Its anger already stoked to an inferno it didn't take much to send the Creature galloping toward the Slayer. Buffy accelerated as well. Jumping over and under the arms as they swept for her she was able to close in within striking distance. Sinking the blade into the gray flesh she dragged the Scythe the length of the First's body, opening up a six foot gash. The Creature screeched in pain and turning and backing away from Its enemy at the same time. Swinging Its long neck for a closer look It lapped tentatively at the red trickles coming down Its left side.

"What's the matter?" Buffy called out, "You act like you've never seen blood before. Oh wait, you haven't. Not yours. Welcome to the material word," the patented half smile slowly lifted the corner of the Slayer's mouth as the playful fire lit up her eyes, "And I'm the material girl"

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

Dawn ran for a good seven minutes before she was satisfied no one was coming after her. She was behind the overloaded left flank of the slayer army which was the place safest from the Bringers, but far from scenic. In fact she could see absolutely nothing other than the backs of the reserve troops. Giving the cave wall a quick look over she picked the most promising section, protrusion wise, and started climbing. Four meters up there was one wide enough for her to sit, only the granite surface felt twice as cold as the freezing mountain air. Crouching down like a gargoyle Dawn perched herself on the parapet grinning at the battlefield below. Despite the anxiousness she felt for her loved ones, she couldn't help it. All these men, women, and monsters, and all their powers were doing nothing more than playing the roles she designed for them. That the First, the ultimate puppet master, was among them was almost making her dizzy with giddiness.

"So this is why generals call war fronts theater," she mused to herself, "It's really does feel like a play when you are the one pulling the strings" The main scene was unfolding at the altar, of course. As she expected it was ramping up slowly. Whatever limited experienced Buffy had in dealing with monsters the size of the Creature had to be thrown out the window. Each one of those battles has been won on the counterattack, but despite Its enormous physical advantage the First adapted a purely defensive posture. The boiling rage at having been outwitted, the desire to crash that arrogant diminutive woman in front of her has taken a back seat to a new emotion It has never felt before in Its seemingly endless existence: fear. It would take no chances. Time was on Its side, the Void would eventually engulf all of Its enemies, but to hold out until then It needed the Harbingers. Just as Dawn calculated, disposing of the Necromancers at the outset disrupted communication between the animates. The First reached out to assume control, but Its concentration was already severely taxed by having to fend off the Slayer. As some Harbingers streamed back to the shrine others continued to carry out the previous orders to advance. With enemy ranks in disarray Kennedy counterattacked. Bolstered by the reserves, Rhonda's left flank quickly overturned any resistance and moved to encircle the main Harbinger force that melted by the minute through desertions more so than casualties. The First could not care less. Only the Scythe in the hands of that obnoxiously bouncy human was actually capable of harming It. If It were to get Its claws on the weapon the battle would be over. Standing between Buffy and hundreds of oncoming Harbingers was a sparse wall of fifteen slayers and the extra six minutes Dawn managed to carve out for them.

"Come on, Stefka," the girl mumbled biting her nails, "Get out those fifty extra IQ points you've been hiding from everyone and do something!"

Like tiny video game units the slayer figures darted around the cave floor. It took Dawn a little while to figure out the significance of this strange configuration. Stefka has indeed figured out how to make the most of the delayed onslaught. The blonde slayer and the aborigine, Kyleema, were upfront slicing and dicing through the initial trickle of Harbingers. Five other slayers arranged themselves in an assembly line fashion and passed the beheaded corpses over to the rest of the team who stacked them up in between the pillars under Enise's watchful eye. The Turkish girl was playing the foreman, running to and fro, making sure the wall was stable enough to defend against the main Bringer wave that was starting to form in the distance.

"Don't pile them in the same direction, Kate, alternate! You entire section is falling apart! If my dad built like that your dad would have deported him already!"

"Hey!" the freckled slayer whined unsure which part of that sentence offended her more.

"This would be a lot easier with bricks and mortar," Samira grumbled visibly unhappy with Enise's sudden elevation to command status and, especially, the relish with which the newly minted head honcho took to it.

"Blood and guts are just as sticky," was the authoritative response.

"That's disgusting!"

"That battlement is disgusting! Prop it up before it falls on Linda!"

"Incoming!" yelled one of the slayers on the corpse conveyer. The First was finally able to cobble together of a significant Bringer faction. Hundreds of animates were heading for them now.

"Retreat!" Stefka commanded, nudging Kyleema's shoulder with the handle of her axe to get the girl's attention, "To the barricades!"

"Oh, my God! I never thought I'd get a chance to say it!" Lili practically squealed in excitement, "To the barricades, everyone!" she bellowed with the most drama she was capable of, " Liberté, égalité, fraternité!"1

Kyleema was the last to hop over the wall. The fourteen seconds separating her from the mass of Bringers seemed like an eternity as the surge of dark robes gradually blotted out the light of every pyre save for the one behind them. This is it. The grips on the weapons tightened as a single thought pierced the mind of every slayer standing at the battlements. _This is it_. Just for how many of them will it turn out to be true in every sense?

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

Another slice and dodge – another successful strike. Another pointless strike. Buffy has lost count of how many times her Scythe connected with the First's arm or tail, but it was like trying to bleed an elephant with paper cuts. The Creature was just too big for her to bring It down in this way. She needed access to the gooey center, but the First hunkered down in the defensive mode and would not open up the fight. There was only one thing left for her to try: run.

"Is this the big plan?" The First cackled, shuffling Its hoofs as the Slayer circled again and again "Making me dizzy?"

Buffy didn't respond. Holding her weapon low, flush to her side she just kept going faster and faster. The Creature spun in place keeping Its torso square to the Slayer to deny her any opportunity to jump on.

"You, clueless bitch," Dawn smirked from her balcony seat. The First was making the same mistakes that have gotten It into this battle to begin with: relying on past memories at face value. If It could truly understand the first twenty years of Buffy's life locked Its head It would know that her sister fought purely on instincts and real time imagination, without any canned style or strategy. Whatever fighting patterns the First thought It derived came to be by coincidence. The only actual constant in Buffy's fighting style was the escalating audacity of each successive move. The girl fidgeted in anticipation.

Momentum is mass times velocity and what Buffy lacked in former she intended to compensate in the latter. She wasn't sure if it was dust or actual smoke trailing her shoes, but it finally felt like she was going fast enough. She dashed forward rounding out her eleventh lap. The Creature readied to swat the pest on the expected vault, but the Slayer went low instead. The power of the impact was unlike anything the Slayer has put her body through before. She felt her organs literally bruise against her rib cage as she threw herself against the front leg. Tomorrow, assuming there is a tomorrow, she won't be able to even crawl out of bed, but right now her brain was swimming in adrenalin and as the Creature's body tumbled on Its side, Buffy didn't waste a second hacking into the exposed stomach with all her might.

With a frightful roar of pain and fury the First scrambled back on Its feet and launched after Buffy. All four arms, the tail, and the jaws at the end of Its twisting neck flew at the Slayer in the first all out assault of the fight. The attack was driven purely by rage and though the Creature was fast, Buffy was faster. The sight of guts hanging out of Its gaping stomach and the thick trail of blood following It was putting an extra spring in her step and she was about to escape this uncoordinated frenzy unscathed. Another swing. The Creature's hand plowed into the stone column, where Buffy's head was just quarter of a second ago, raining debris down on both of them. Another miss. The First bellowed in frustration when It saw the Slayer pull out a small shard from her thigh. There it was, an attack Its spry foe could not possibly dodge. The First thrust two Its hands into the cave floor flinging a ton of rock and half frozen earth in the direction of Its enemy. Buffy did her best to evade or deflect the larger boulders, but smaller stones cut a dozen grooves across her face and bare arms. Why, the hell, did she go sleeveless? Ditching armor was a no-brainer: a direct hit by the First would crush her anyway, but shorts and a tank top for 'extra mobility'? At this elevation?! Her and her bright ideas. The debris kept on coming, faster and thicker. There was no way she could continue taking this for long. She pulled her head into her shoulders and leaned forward. The cloud of dust the Creature has stirred up has rendered her invisible. The First didn't think much of the side effect as It was satisfied with attacking in Buffy's general direction. In the momentary delight of finally finding some measure of success It has forgotten who It was dealing with. Hidden by the fog of war the Slayer was swiftly closing the distance between them with a firm intent of inflicting the kind of price for this newfound strategy that the First would not dare try it again.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

Corpses. They were everywhere. Under her feet, at her back, in front of her face. They were all the same, jumping, crawling, squirming. She has lost the ability to tell which ones were moving of their own volition and which ones were pushed or thrown by the fighting around her. Everything and everyone merged together into a bloody nightmarish haze. The only way she could still tell she was awake was the piercing pain emanating from the slash across her forehead.

"Watch it!" came from somewhere in the mist, "What are you doing?"

"You, Samira, what are you doing?!"

Stefka's powerful voice snapped her back. Just to the right of her Kate was on the ground with a mortified look on her face.

"What, the hell?! You almost took my head off!"

"I'm sorry," Samira stumbled wiping her face with her forearm, "I can't see; the blood is getting in my eyes"

The Harbinger assault wasn't letting down for a second. There were simply too many of them to kill so the slayers were tag teaming their posts. One would use her strength to physically hold back the attacking mob from climbing over the barricades while the other concentrated on the actual beheading.

"I told you to take care of your wound!" Stefka yelled, moving closer to cover the now gaping hole in their defenses, while Kyleema moved in from the other side. Samira pulled the bandage off her head and trickles of blood run through her fingers. It was completely soaked through.

"I'll do it over, just give me a second"

"Forget it, move back with the injured! Kate, take your post! Kyleema and I will take turns backing you up!"

"I'm not that hurt. I can fight!"

"You are a liability, move back!"

"No!" the Persian shot back angrily, "The line won't hold with just eleven!"

"It won't hold with you fighting for the enemy half the time, now do as you are told!"

Samira screamed, sending her guan doa flying into the pyre near the altar. It bounced impotently off the stone mirroring the feeling of exhausted resignation that instantly overcame the slayer. Tripping over Harbinger body parts she stumbled to where the casualties of their desperate stand were already piling up. The covered up body was Samantha. The bubbly Nigerian was hit in the back by a Bringer whose head wasn't fully cut off. Instant death. The other two were wounded. They weren't a liability, they couldn't fight if they wanted to. Samira bit her lip trying to contain another scream. Maybe she could do something here. She knelt over the Korean slayer who lay quietly with her back turned and gently squeezed her shoulder.

"Hey..," she struggled trying to recall the girl's name, "...You?"

"It's Yun," Daria responded instead, "Yun Choi"

"Hey, Yun Choi..."

"She's dead," the Egyptian interrupted once more with a barely audible whisper, "She stopped breathing a few minutes ago"

Daria was right. Samira's fingers were all over the slender neck of the slayer, but there was no pulse. She crawled over to the now lone survivor. The wounded girl's oval shaped eyes were barely open, the last of her strength channeled into the right hand clutching her side. It was doing little good. The pool of blood collecting under her was getting deeper by the second. Samira pressed her hand hard on top invoking a yelp from the injured slayer.

"Take it easy, you'll be okay"

"No," Daria replied weakly, "I'll be dead. Soon. It's the blood, it won't stop. Your face, is that where they got you?"

"Forehead mostly"

"Good," the girl's mouth twitched, unable to smile, "There's not a lot of blood flow there. It will take you hours to bleed out"

"Well, aren't you the cheerleader," Samira grumbled concentrating on finding the best pressure points to slow down the blood that just kept oozing through her fingers. The Bringer blade ripped right throw the mesh armor at a sixty degree angle. The gash wasn't deep, but it was wide.

"Just saying," the girl stuttered through the pain, "The fight will be over by then. If we win – you live. If we loose – you die. Same as if you weren't hurt. Me, I'm dead either way"

"Who died and made you doctor?" Samira scoffed, "Don't say it's Yun"

"I always wanted to be a doctor," Daria whispered wistfully, "Since I was five. I was going to Cairo University after my slayer training was over"

Samira finally seemed to find the optimal position for her hand when she noticed blood dripping from her face right into the wound. "This can't be good," she thought swiftly damping her forehead with a cramped bandage, "What if I give her mono? That will be embarrassing"

"You never told me that," she said out loud to make sure the conversation didn't wain.

"Because you'd brand me a nerd. You said there's only room for one nerd in your circle, and Dawn had that wrapped up"

"True enough," Samira nodded, "Honestly though, I'm a little jealous. Doctor sounds really nice. I wanted to be a princess when I was little. How sad is that?"

"A lot of girls want to be princesses"

"I don't mean when I was five. I still wanted it when I was ten, eleven. All I ever wanted was to look pretty and boss people around. Aren't you supposed to grow out of it by that age?"

"Or at least by eighteen"

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing, just deathbed bubble"

"Hey!" Samira snapped her fingers in front of the Egyptian as the girl started to drift out, "Stay with me!" She kept snapping her fingers searching for the best way to keep the Daria awake, "You want to be a doctor? Let's see what you've got. We are going to figure this thing out. Why isn't the blood stopping?" The slayer opened her eyes, but the stare was glazed and unfocused, "Come on! Pay attention, is it a spell?"

"No," the girl finally answered, "The Void is active; all spells are neutralized. It's poison"

"No, Helga's potions were supposed to neutralize any poisons. Must be some Necromancer thing she didn't think of. Kills the tissue, won't let it heal"

"That's stupid. Dead tissue can't bleed"

This was too much to go unacknowledged.

"Did you, seriously, just take another shot at me?"

"I did, didn't?," Daria's voice seemed to fade by the minute, "I guess my social life expires a few minutes before the actual one"

"So this is the note you want to go out on, calling me stupid?"

A brief sparkle passed through the girl's dimming eyes as she eked out a smile

"Bravest thing I've ever done"

"Not yet," Samira scrambled to her feet as a sudden realization flared in her brain. She raced to pick up her guan dao. Her right hand, slick with Daria's blood slipped along the staff until finally getting a firmer grip past the mid-point. Once again she launched it at the stone pyre, but this time carefully aimed. The weapon skimmed across the flaming surface, coming out on the other side along with a dozen or so small rocks dislodged from the top. Quickly guesstimating the appropriate size, Samira grabbed one of the glowing stones with her blood soaked bandage as a slingshot and hurried back to Daria's side. So dead tissue doesn't bleed, does it?

"This is for calling me stupid," she said pushing down with her left hand on Daria's chest to keep her still then pressing the scorching stone into the wound with her right.

"B-ismi-llāhi r-raḥīmi!2" the girl screamed, thrashing under Samira.

"That woke you up, didn't it?" The Persian mumbled blotting the slashed side with now blackening rock. The smell of burning flesh hit her nostrils, "Get a grip," she ordered herself as the nausea was becoming unbearable, "You think bleeding into her wound was bad? How would puking into it look?"

"God, it hurts!" Daria only whimpered now having used up the last of her strength, "It hurts so much!"

Samira didn't respond. She took a step back and plunked herself onto the cave dirt. Daria's wound was a horrifying blackish brown mess. But the blood has stopped. Samira stared at her handiwork as her left hand traced the slash on her forehead. It extended further than she realized. All the way across her nose to the top of her cheek. As seconds ticked by, Daria, the pyre, the cave, everything faded into a thick mist of blood and tears. The right hand tightened around the smoldering bandage sling. Can't hold the line with just eleven people. Can't hold it.

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

It was the breeze against the bare skin of her arm that once again gave away the incoming tail. Buffy uncoiled herself in the air pressing the Scythe flush against her chest letting the Creature slice Itself against the blade. What an inspired, gutsy choice it was to go with shorts and tank top for 'extra mobility'. Especially at this altitude! The self congratulations fell just short of complacency as Buffy almost fell herself on the landing, slipping on a severed Bringer head. Quickly, she kicked it away in an indeterminate direction. That would make it eleventh to slip by the slayer guard and just as the previous ten it didn't make it very far. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Kyleema leap over the crowd to retrieve her boomerang. She should really have the girl teach her how to use it. That thing is so handy!

Another offensive burst from the First brought her mind back into the fight. The Creature has apparently remembered the old adage about what constitutes the best defense. There was no way she could pull off another offensive coup like she did earlier now, but she was getting good shots in on the counterattack and the cumulative toll was becoming visible. This time a tired, two handed swipe nearly cost the Creature Its balance while the Slayer hopped easily to the side.

"Things starting to look a little shaky, aren't they?" she grinned.

"Still better off than you," the First smirked right back, Its confidence apparently steadier than Its posture.

"Me? I can do this all day"

"Too bad you have only ten minutes; fifteen if you are lucky"

It didn't matter if the First was lying, guessing, or doing Its favorite 'torture with truth' routine. One way or the other this battle had to end soon and Buffy knew it.

"Ten minutes is plenty," she answered hoarsely, licking her bloodied lips.

"Certainly," the First smiled slyly, inching in closer, "Plenty for a fun size firecracker like you to slip by my defenses for a final, fatal blow," It paused, the smile growing wider, "If only you knew where it goes. Perhaps, here, into the heart?" the Creature pointed to Its left breast, "Assuming that's where the heart is. Assuming I have a heart. Assuming I have just one!" It chuckled malevolently, "It's fun being unique, isn't? Tell you what, I'll make it easy for you," the Creature spread all four of Its arms wide, opening up Its upper body, "Plenty of time to get in, not enough time to get out. Free shot. Guess right and I turn to dust. Guess wrong and I squash you like a flea. You are not betting all that much here, Summers, in ten minutes you are dead anyway. Come on, gamble, gamble, gamble!"

Up on her perch Dawn has gnawed her nails to a stump in frustrated impatience, but not with her sister. That Buffy's impending victory might not arrive as quickly as needed was not unanticipated and Dawn had an ace in the hole precisely for this contingency. Unfortunately, the hole ended up being a lot more literal than she expected. The pile of rocks to the left of the duel was shaking ever stronger the last twelve minutes. When the large granite plate at the top eventually cracked Leshii slowly pulled himself out of the debris. Giving the battle to his right a passing glance he limped the opposite way, overturning a rock every so often until he found what he was looking for. He picked up the cane and twisting the handle pulled out a long, thin blade of a dull gray metal.

"So obvious," Dawn smirked, continuing her commentary, "The moment he said, '_mostly_ lead', it was so obvious. Though why did I think it'd be uranium? Stupid. Plutonium is a hundred times more radioactive"

Too busy trying to incite the Slayer into an act of desperation the First did not notice as Leshii calmly walked up behind It and jammed the full length of the blade into Its thigh. The Creature hollered in unbearable pain and twisted Its upper body around. Grabbing Leshii with one of Its right hands It jammed him waste deep into the rock floor. The entire sideshow lasted less than two seconds, but by the time the First turned back to Buffy she was gone. It wasn't left to wander for long as It felt a pair of small feet landing on Its left shoulder. At once the snake like neck twirled and the head rushed downward, Its entire face morphing into a set of giant unhinged jaws. The jagged fangs snapped into the Slayer's torso, but went straight though as the ethereal wave radiating from the point of the severed neck reached the head. The next instant Buffy found herself falling awkwardly to the ground as the rest of the Creature's decapitated body dissolved beneath her into wisps of opaque black smoke. It rose, forming a dark shadowy shape that floated up to the ceiling of the cave.

"You won nothing!" the First growled, "If you think this is over..."

"It is for you," Buffy heard Leshii say softly. It came rushing back. The smoke, merging into streams enveloped Leshii, pouring in through his mouth, eyes, nostrils. His head flung back as his torso convulsed in its stone confinement. When the air cleared he stopped flailing and lurched forward, his fists clenched to the point of bleeding, as though he was trying desperately to hold on to that last vestige of humanity left in him.

"Everybody out!" Buffy screamed, "Out of the cave! Now!" Most of her guard were already heading out with the wounded past the unmoving Harbingers. The only ones in place were Stefka who couldn't take her eyes off her brother and Alice trying unsuccessfully to snap her out of her stupor. "I said 'out!'", Buffy grabbed Stefka's arm as she ran by and practically dragged her along until the girl came to enough to move on her own. "Xander! Xander!" the Slayer called out as she closed in on the main force

"Over here," the ranks parted as Awa forcefully cleared the path. Covered in bloody grime he stepped slowly, favoring his left side.

"We are going with plan 'E'," Buffy rattled out moving past him as she did, "Call the choppers!"

"Plan 'E'?"

"'E' for explosion! The gunships have rockets, don't they?"

"Willow needs line of site to do her spell. If we blow everything up..."

"The spell ship has sailed. If we seal the Void in place and clear the mountain villages we'll slow its spread, buy us a few weeks, or days, or something! Give us seven minutes for evac and call in the strike!" she shouted from beyond the slayer lines now.

"You heard the woman!" Kennedy barked her cohorts, "Move out! Team leads, take roll outside and report anyone missing to me! Go, go, go!"

The witches' position lay past the slayers, just to the east of the entrance, and by the time Buffy got through there was barely anyone left. Then again there was only one she needed. Propped up by Giles Willow seemed wobbly, holding a piece of wet cloth against the back of her head.

"What, the hell, happened back here?"

"Dawn attacked her," the Watcher replied, "We missed the window for the spell"

"What?! Where is she? Dawn!" Buffy screamed desperately into the chaos of the cave. The slayers were filing out in droves, sometimes knocking down a Bringer or two who turned motionless the moment the Void absorbed the First. Buffy pushed her way back towards the shrine now, calling out her sister's name until she finally saw her. Dawn was walking towards Leshii.

"Don't come near him!" Buffy shouted sprinting forward in a vain attempt to intercept her.

Dawn stopped a few steps away. The breeze flung open the unbuttoned coat. Her sweater was gone leaving her in nothing but her bra and leftover torn bandages across her torso. She lifted her arm, letting the long sleeve fall back to reveal a small dagger clutched in her fist. The fire from the pyres sparkled in its ruby blade. She stood over Leshii, waiting for what seemed like an eternity. She could have stabbed him right there. Properly executed, the blade was long enough to pierce his right ventricle from the back, but it wasn't how it was supposed to happen. So she stood still. And waited. She waited until Leshii slammed his fists into the ground with the force that seemed to shake the mountain itself, and tore himself out of the rock. Waited, as he straightened up slowly. Waited, until he lifted his head to meet her gaze. Open your eyes. In one stroke Dawn rammed the full length of the blade into his chest. Leshii collapsed just as he rose, first to his knees, then on his side. Dawn turned the body on its back and run her hand over his face. With some strain she withdrew the dagger. She wiped the excess blood on his pant leg and then using just a tip proceeded to cut slowly along the shimmering thread ingrown into his chest.

"Dawn," she heard Buffy's voice behind her, but the work was too delicate to get distracted. At last she she stood up clutching the bloody necklace in her left fist. There was somewhat of a crowd around her now.

"Here," Dawn handed Buffy the dagger, "You should probably return it to the temple. You can remove the artifacts from the body, but they can't be destroyed. Not sure if it's better to hide or guard them. You know better, I suppose. Don't cremate the body. There's a place in Moscow I think he would have wanted to be buried," she paused, scanning around the altar. Stefka was there, staring at her, "When you bring him back, I'll show you," she took a step towards her friend, but the girl recoiled in terror and disgust. Dawn swallowed hard, "I guess I'll send for him then. Now I have to leave. I could use some help where I'm going, what do you say, Yozh?"

"I say those are tit sized balls you've got under that bra," the gangster smirked, "But it'll take more than his cross to take his place"

"How about the payroll bank account numbers?"

Yozh's smirk turned into a full smile.

"It won't be easy,"

"I don't expect it to be"

"Jap won't work under you. There will be a war"

"I know"

"It will be bloody"

"I'm sure"

"But it will be fun. I'm in," Yozh reloaded his shotgun, "We'll need to move quickly, though"

"We move now," said Dawn and headed out of the cave.

"Dawn!" Buffy called, louder than before. The girl stopped.

"We do need to talk, Buffy, and we will," she spoke quietly with her back to her sister, "We will talk for a long time. We will yell, and we will laugh, and we will cry. And, at the end, we will hug, and you'll understand, and maybe even forgive. But there are things I need to do first, I'm sorry." She ran outside, Yozh followed with his remaining men joining them at the cave exit. Kennedy gave the group a momentary curious stare as she passed them by on the way to Buffy.

"I called off the strike," she rattled out on the run as soon as she got to within non-shouting distance, "The wounded are on their way to the hospital at the base. I checked with the witches, they are in no condition to do any teleportation until tomorrow so we should fly back to the base as well. No hurry, though, there's plenty of daylight left"

Buffy nodded silently, picked up Leshii's body, and headed out herself. The rest filed out as well. The cave was mostly empty now save for five pairs of slayers that were methodically turning over Bringer corpses. Judging by the slow and deliberate way in which they moved whoever they were looking for they didn't expect to find them alive. Willow was standing just outside, propping herself against the wall.

"Dawn.."

"I know," Buffy interrupted and set corpse on the ground.

"You're not going to just let her go, are you?"

Buffy looked up. The clouds have burned up and the afternoon sun was shining full force, soothing the icy pricks of mountain breeze upon her cheeks.

"No," she answered, "I'm never letting go"

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

The cold air was biting at Dawn's lungs, as the helicopter rose ever higher. Yozh was yelling over the noise. Mixing English and Russian he was spitting out people's names, places, details of operations, things she probably needed to know. Dawn wasn't paying attention. She was looking down at the tiny figures of slayers preparing the other helicopters for departure. Among the semi-organized chaos there was one that stood still for a while now, seemingly looking up, and though Dawn was much too high to make out the face she knew exactly who it was. She watched her sister until the helicopter turned putting another peak between them. As Buffy disappeared from her line of sight, Dawn closed her eyes and drifted, letting the exhaustion of the past week take her to a place of memories and dreams.

"_...Love is sacrifice and sacrifice must be accepted as well as given. If you loved each other equally you'd both jump off the tower and what would be the point of that?" _

"_Buffy deserves better. She deserves someone who loves her more. I have to be ready for a greater sacrifice, but she has already given her life for me, how can I top that?__" _

"_Sacrifice is subjective. Your values don't match hers. Find what's most important to you__" _

"_So what's your thing? What's worth the most to you?__" _

_She glanced back from the doorway and saw Leshii get off his chair and walk to the window. The moonlight reflecting off his pale skin gave his torso a surreal ghostly glow. He extended his hand and let it slide slowly up the glass, until most of his upper body was leaning against the glass. Pressing his lips to the surface he exhaled. The opium smoke snaked out of Leshii's mouth and spread dimming his reflection. As she was closing the door behind her he finally answered. _

"_Her love" _

The End

1The most famous slogan of the French Revolution that since became the mantra of the French Republic, "freedom, equality, brotherhood"

2Merciful God! (Arabic)


	16. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

The first ten seconds of the recording seemed garbled, but after turning up the volume Faith realized that the inaudible voices was just TV playing in the background. Rustling of the newspaper. Someone shifting on a squeaky couch. The can opener. Something louder now, a door being slammed shut.

"God, damn, this one is actually worse than the last!" a man's deep voice boomed, "Is that a cockroach? Well, it fits right in. Why can't you be like your brother and live somewhere you don't have to skip breakfast to visit?"

"For that precise reason," a voice closer to the microphone answered, "The only guests I get are the ones who absolutely have to be here. Now what did I do to require the presence of Marcus Hamilton in all of his resurrected glory?"

"I've come for answers"

"It's forty two," was a chuckled response.

"No, it's ninety seven," the visitor's voice seeped anger and disdain, "You promised us mass casualties among the slayers and all we got was a paltry ninety seven"

"'Paltry'? Why don't you go up to Buffy Summers and tell her how paltry the death toll was this year. Even the Wolfram&Hart won't put you back together after she's through"

"There are nine hundred active slayers roaming the world while the First Evil is dead and Black Thorn is decimated! Do you have any idea what this means?"

"Of course I do. We are about to descend into the Golden Age of Man"

"Was this supposed to be a joke?"

"No, I never joke about Golden Ages"

"You son of a bitch, who's side are you really on?!"

"'Whose side'?" the host's voice turned to an eerie growl before erupting full steam into Faith's headphones, "There's only one side – my side! And your Senior Partners should thank their lucky stars their little Apocalypse just happens to be in my interest!"

"What Apocalypse? We've never been further away!"

"You don't get, do you, Marcus? A month doesn't go by without some dumb bastard trying another cockamamie way of ending the world. It fails, of course. All of them fail. Some get further than others, but never to the end. Do you know why? Because every plan, no matter how brilliant, has at least one failure point. Because for every dumb bastard with an apocalypse plan there's an even dumber bastard who will charge in at the last minute and do whatever insane, improbable thing that needs to be done to save the day. That's just how it is. Doesn't matter how smart, how powerful you are, there's nothing you can do. Except to take away that last minute. The reason my Apocalypse succeeds, Marcus, is that by the time anyone even notices that something is amiss, by the time that ever present hero even realizes she's needed, we will be long past the failure point"

"We grow tired of endless promises. You say you have a plan? Let's hear it"

"I can't do that. We are almost there, but not quite. As I said earlier, if a hero is given a chance to succeed – she will. No knowledge – no chance. I cannot risk a leak. The Senior Partners will just have to trust me"

"They did," the visitor responded now absolutely calm, "They gave you all the resources you asked for. They shut down every other apocalypse project at your request. In return you have undone centuries of their work. If I come back without a proper explanation they will cut their losses and move on. This is not a threat. It is what will happen" For a while the recording reverted to background noises. Faith was now certain the TV was playing a soccer match.

"The humans have a saying," the host finally spoke, "'It's always darkest before dawn.' Tell your masters it works both ways"

"That's it? For your sake I hope the Senior Partners are more trusting than I am. 'Darkest before dawn'," Marcus snorted contemptuously, "At least now I understand why you called you project 'Day Break'"

"You understand nothing. Now get out. Leave me to my cockroaches" The door slammed shut once more signaling an end to the recording. Faith put down her headphones and stared across her kitchen table at Dmitri's smugly smiling face.

"Where did you get this?"

"A private investigations agency"

"What agency?"

"Novikov & Investigations"

"'Novikov &'?" Faith chuckled

"Weird sounding, isn't it? Almost like a there's a second name missing"

The brunette stopped laughing and leaned back in her chair staring down the young man.

"And what is it they do at Novikov &? Help the helpless?"

"Screw the helpless!" Dmitri scoffed, "Let the Council deal with them. Novikov & addresses the suffering of the helpful, the people of this city who are victimized by the supernatural, but are reluctant to seek help from an overly ethical foreign government controlled organization. The people who appreciate, usually in large dollar amounts, an agency that involves itself only in the problems they are hired to solve and exercises extreme discretion regarding whatever they happened to stumble upon in the process. In turn, this arrangement provides Novikov & with the time and resources to pursue unpaid cases that peak their interest. Such as the one before you" Dmitri did his best to keep his smile on even as Faith's face grew ever more serious. For almost a minute she sat silently, periodically flicking her shot glass with her index finger.

"The baby slayers are leaving the nest," she spoke at last, "The Council is opening dozens of regional offices, including one here in Moscow coordinating the work of twelve slayers in Western Russian and the Caucus. Buffy wants me to head it"

"I know," Dmitri nodded, "In addition to bugging apartments Novikov & also hacks voice mail. They are real stinkers. She is still waiting for your answer"

"I know!" Faith groaned throwing back her head and splattering her long hair all over the back of the chair, "I don't get it. What's wrong with me? Do you have any idea how much I wanted this? How long I waited for this?"

"Waited for what? The job or the offer?"

There was a stare. Not at Dmitri or anywhere in particular for that matter. A shocked stare that quickly turn into a smile, then laughter. Faith was never shy about an exuberant laugh, but this was a kind he has never heard before. Not a note of sarcasm, malice, or resignation. It rang clear and bright, like a newfound forest spring, mesmerizing in its purity. For the first time since she could remember Faith was happy.

...

**FAQs**

Disclaimer: _Since these follow the epilogue it stands to reason they would contain references to the novel, but if you have somehow gotten here without reading the book and don't wish to be spoiled, close the page now_.

**Q: That Epilogue sounded suspiciously like a Prologue. Is there a sequel coming?**

A: It's not really a sequel. When I took Buffy/Dawn story to its logical conclusion while creating the outline of 'Siblings' I realized that I have two separate novels on my hands. Part two was being sketched out even as Book I was being written. As a result certain arcs were setup and partially developed that were never meant to be resolved in Book I.

**Q: There definitely were a number of things left hanging. Are they going to be resolved in Book II? What is the book about?**

A: Book II, tentatively titled 'The Keeper' starts off 3 years after the conclusion of 'Siblings'. Among other things, it will involve various threads started in the first book, such as the fate of the Slayer line and the true nature of the Key, against the background of various romantic relationships of the main characters (in contrast with Book I which placed greater emphasis on familial/platonic ties)

**Q: Weird things have been happening to Dawn pretty much since Chapter 1 without any coherent explanation. Now you are making people read a whole other book for a resolution?**

A: To be fair the clues have gotten more and more explicit as Book I progressed. The trend continues with partial revelations sprinkled throughout Book II. The nature of Dawn's visitors, for one, will be explained in the very first chapter. And no, they are not just aspects of her personality. How lame would that be?

**Q: Is the second book also Buffy/Dawn centric?**

A: Yes, that does not change. The supporting cast does, somewhat. We'll see less Giles for example, but a lot more of Xander, Spike, and Illyria. Still no Angel, though. It's not that I don't like the character it's that for some reason I just can't seem to be able write for him.

**Q: How long will the second book take? It took forever to finish the first one**

A: That's mean and only kind of true. While the overall pace, 8 years, was indeed glacial, two thirds of the novel was written in the last 2.5 which isn't bad at all. I will also try to make book two shorter, though I have sabotaged most of my past efforts at being concise.

**Q: So when's the first installment coming out then?**

A: Not sure. I have plenty of material to knock out the first chapter or even two, but I want to work on a few original ideas before diving back into Buffyverse. 2nd half of 2013 is a likely time frame.


End file.
